Closed list

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Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can (effectively) only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some influence, that would be called an open list. Closed list systems are commonly used in party-list proportional representation, but most mixed electoral systems also use closed lists in their party list component.

In closed list systems, each political party has pre-decided who will receive the seats allocated to that party in the elections,^[1] so that the candidates positioned highest on this list tend to always get a seat in the parliament while the candidates positioned very low on the closed list will not.

However, the candidates "at the water mark" of a given party are in the position of either losing or winning their seat depending on the number of votes the party gets. "The water mark" is the number of seats a specific party can be expected to achieve. The number of seats that the party wins, combined with the candidates' positions on the party's list, will then determine whether a particular candidate will get a seat.

List of locations with closed list systems[]

Countries using closed-list proportional representation as of 2020.

  Countries where all parties use a closed-list

  Countries where only some parties use a closed-list

Closed list proportional representation[]

Closed list mixed electoral systems[]

See also[]

• Open list
• Ley de Lemas
• List of democracy and elections-related topics

References[]

External links[]

• Country profiles at IFES
• Open, Closed and Free Lists at Ace Project