October 1959 Icelandic parliamentary election
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All 40 seats in the Lower House and 20 seats in the Upper House of Althing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 90.37% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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Early parliamentary elections were held in Iceland on 25 and 26 October 1959.[1] Following the electoral reforms made after the June elections, the Independence Party won 16 of the 40 seats in the Lower House of the Althing.[2]
Electoral reforms[]
The June 1959 elections had ended with both the Independence Party and the Progressive Party winning 13 seats, despite the IP receiving 42.5% of the vote to the PP's 27.2%.[3] The electoral system involved a mix of single member constituencies, two-member constituencies elected using proportional representation (PR) and one large multi-member constituency for Reykjavík that also used PR.[4]
The reforms saw the creation of eight multi-member constituencies elected using PR together with 11 open-list compensatory seats (parties had to win at least one constituency seat to be eligible for the compensatory seats).[4] Five constituencies elected five members each, two elected six members each and Reykjavík elected 12. The number of seats for Reykjavík was also increased from the prior elections,[4] increasing the overall total in the Lower House from 35 to 40 and in the Upper House from 17 to 20.[5]
The voters’ capacity to change the order of names on the PR lists was greatly reduced compared to prior elections as well, now only being used to calculate one-third of the final number of votes deemed to have been received by each candidate, while the party’s unaltered ordering determined the remaining two-thirds.[6]
Results[]
Party | Votes | % | Seats | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lower House | +/– | Upper House | +/– | |||||
Independence Party | 33,800 | 39.72 | 16 | +3 | 8 | +1 | ||
Progressive Party | 21,882 | 25.71 | 11 | –2 | 6 | 0 | ||
People's Alliance | 13,621 | 16.01 | 7 | +2 | 3 | +1 | ||
Social Democratic Party | 12,909 | 15.17 | 6 | +2 | 3 | +1 | ||
National Preservation Party | 2,883 | 3.39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Total | 85,095 | 100.00 | 40 | +5 | 20 | +3 | ||
Valid votes | 85,095 | 98.46 | ||||||
Invalid/blank votes | 1,331 | 1.54 | ||||||
Total votes | 86,426 | 100.00 | ||||||
Registered voters/turnout | 95,637 | 90.37 | ||||||
Source: Nohlen & Stöver |
References[]
- ^ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p961 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
- ^ Nohlen & Stöver, p976
- ^ Nohlen & Stöver, pp970-976
- ^ a b c Nohlen & Stöver, p955
- ^ Nohlen & Stöver, pp976-978
- ^ Renwick, Alan (2010). Helgason, Þorkell; Hermundardóttir, Friðný Ósk; Simonarson, Baldur (eds.). "Electoral System Change in Europe since 1945: Iceland" (PDF). Electoral system change since 1945. Archived from the original on 4 October 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
- 1959 elections in Europe
- 1959 elections in Iceland
- Elections in Iceland
- Althing
- October 1959 events in Europe
- European election stubs
- Iceland politics stubs