Elections in Norway
Encyclopedia
Norway
elects its legislature
on a national level. The parliament, the Storting (or Stortinget by Norwegian grammar), has 169 members elected for a four year term (during which it may not be dissolved) by the proportional representation
in multi-seat constituencies.
Norway has a multi-party system, with numerous parties
in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties
must work with each other to form coalition government
s and/or minority cabinets.
In Norway
, elections are held every second year, alternating between elections for the Parliament and local elections, both of which are held on a 4-yearly basis.
Suffrage is universal from the year a person turns 18 years old, even if the person turns 18 later in the year the election is held. Only Norwegian
citizens
can vote in the Parliamentary elections, but foreigners who have lived in Norway for three years continuously can vote in the local elections. Women's suffrage
was adopted in 1913.
The King of Norway is not considered a "citizen" and cannot vote. The queen and crown prince are eligible to vote but traditionally do not do so.
The last elections were the 2011 local elections
, on 12 September.
and the underlying principle is that the number of seats a party gets in the Storting should be as close to the relative number of votes the party got in the election (the principle of mathematical fairness).
There are some exceptions to the above-mentioned principle:
, and each county is a constituency in the election. Each county elects a pre-calculated number of seats in the Parliament, the Storting, based on the population and geographical area of the county. Each inhabitant scores one point and each square kilometer scores 1.8 points. This calculation is done every eight years. This practice has been criticised because in some larger counties with sparse population a single vote counts more than in other more densely populated counties. Others claim that counties with a scattered and sparse population situated far away from the central administration should have a stronger representation in the Parliament. In recent elections a vote in the northernmost county Finnmark
has counted approximately twice a vote in the capital Oslo
or the surrounding county Akershus
.
After the votes are counted and the members of the Parliament are designated their respective seats of their county, 19 levelling seats
, one in each county, are divided to parties who got fewer seats than their election result percentage would suggest. This practice was adopted in 1989. However, only parties with more than 4% of the votes on a national basis – the election threshold
– are entitled to levelling seats.
For the elections of 2005 and 2009 the distribution of seats, including levelling seats, is as follows:
election, which elects politicians to the county council
. Second is the municipality election, which elects politicians to the municipal councils.
heritage, included in the Sámi census, are eligible to vote to the Sami Parliament of Norway
. For the election Norway is divided into 13 constituencies from which 3 representatives are elected. In addition an additional representative is elected from the four constituencies with most votes. The election is held at the same time as the elections to the Norwegian Parliament.
s on election days is prohibited by section 3-7 of the Alcohol Act. This is to prevent people from voting under the influence of alcohol.
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
elects its legislature
Legislature
A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...
on a national level. The parliament, the Storting (or Stortinget by Norwegian grammar), has 169 members elected for a four year term (during which it may not be dissolved) by the proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
in multi-seat constituencies.
Norway has a multi-party system, with numerous parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
must work with each other to form coalition government
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
s and/or minority cabinets.
In Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, elections are held every second year, alternating between elections for the Parliament and local elections, both of which are held on a 4-yearly basis.
Suffrage is universal from the year a person turns 18 years old, even if the person turns 18 later in the year the election is held. Only Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
citizens
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
can vote in the Parliamentary elections, but foreigners who have lived in Norway for three years continuously can vote in the local elections. Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
was adopted in 1913.
The King of Norway is not considered a "citizen" and cannot vote. The queen and crown prince are eligible to vote but traditionally do not do so.
The last elections were the 2011 local elections
Norwegian local elections, 2011
Nationwide local elections for seats in municipality and county councils were held throughout Norway on 12 September 2011. Several municipalities also opened the polling booths on 11 September. For most polling stations this meant that two elections, the municipal elections and the county elections...
, on 12 September.
The election system
Norway uses the same system in both local and national elections when it comes to distributing mandates. This method is the modified Sainte-Laguë methodSainte-Laguë method
The Sainte-Laguë method is one way of allocating seats approximately proportional to the number of votes of a party to a party list used in many voting systems. It is named after the French mathematician André Sainte-Laguë. The Sainte-Laguë method is quite similar to the D'Hondt method, but uses...
and the underlying principle is that the number of seats a party gets in the Storting should be as close to the relative number of votes the party got in the election (the principle of mathematical fairness).
There are some exceptions to the above-mentioned principle:
- Levelling seatsLeveling seatLeveling seats are a mechanism employed in Norwegian elections to the national legislature, the Storting, and in Swedish elections to national and regional assemblies, to ensure proportional representation both by county and political party...
: These mandates exist to adjust what was thought to be unfair: A party could theoretically get a number of votes in total, but not a high enough count in any single constituency to get a mandate. A party must achieve more than 4% of the total votes – the election thresholdElection thresholdIn party-list proportional representation systems, an election threshold is a clause that stipulates that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or within a particular district, to obtain any seats in the parliament...
– to be entitled to levelling seats. - The rural additions: Sparsely populated constituencies get more mandates than the population would suggest. This is to maintain a representative feeling in the national assembly and to prevent urban votes overrunning the rural votes, but has lately been heavily criticised for being undemocratic and not mathematically fair.
- Many parties, few mandates: All of the 7 parties currently represented in the Storting (SVSocialist Left Party (Norway)The Socialist Left Party or SV, is a Norwegian left-wing political party. At one point one of the smallest parties in Parliament, it became the fourth-largest political party in Norway for the first time in the 2001 parliamentary election, and has been so ever since...
, ApNorwegian Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is the senior partner in the current Norwegian government as part of the Red-Green Coalition, and its leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is the current Prime Minister of Norway....
, SpCentre Party (Norway)The Centre Party is a centrist and agrarian political party in Norway, founded in 1920. The Centre Party's policy is not based on any of the major ideologies of the 19th and 20th century, but has a focus on maintaining decentralised economic development and political decision-making.From its...
, VVenstre (Norway)The Liberal Party is a centrist liberal political party in Norway. The party is the oldest in the country, and has enacted reforms such as parliamentarism, freedom of religion, universal suffrage and free education. Since 2010, the leader of the party is Trine Skei Grande...
, KrFChristian People's Party (Norway)The Christian Democratic Party , is a Christian Democratic Norwegian political party founded in 1933. The Norwegian name literally translates to Christian People's Party...
, HConservative Party of NorwayThe Conservative Party is a Norwegian political party. The current leader is Erna Solberg. The party was since the 1920s consistently the second largest party in Norway, but has been surpassed by the growth of the Progress Party in the late 1990s and 2000s...
, FrPProgress Party (Norway)The Progress Party is a political party in Norway which identifies as conservative liberal and libertarian. The media has described it as conservative and right-wing populist...
) run lists in all 19 counties. In addition to these 7, a total of 21 parties had lists in the 2005 election. These parties all compete for the same mandates, and in constituencies with few mandates, few or none of them get in. This is partially offset by levelling seats, but only for parties above the election threshold.
Constituencies and seat distribution
Norway is divided into 19 countiesCounties of Norway
Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 430 municipalities...
, and each county is a constituency in the election. Each county elects a pre-calculated number of seats in the Parliament, the Storting, based on the population and geographical area of the county. Each inhabitant scores one point and each square kilometer scores 1.8 points. This calculation is done every eight years. This practice has been criticised because in some larger counties with sparse population a single vote counts more than in other more densely populated counties. Others claim that counties with a scattered and sparse population situated far away from the central administration should have a stronger representation in the Parliament. In recent elections a vote in the northernmost county Finnmark
Finnmark
or Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens...
has counted approximately twice a vote in the capital Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
or the surrounding county Akershus
Akershus
- Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum...
.
After the votes are counted and the members of the Parliament are designated their respective seats of their county, 19 levelling seats
Leveling seat
Leveling seats are a mechanism employed in Norwegian elections to the national legislature, the Storting, and in Swedish elections to national and regional assemblies, to ensure proportional representation both by county and political party...
, one in each county, are divided to parties who got fewer seats than their election result percentage would suggest. This practice was adopted in 1989. However, only parties with more than 4% of the votes on a national basis – the election threshold
Election threshold
In party-list proportional representation systems, an election threshold is a clause that stipulates that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or within a particular district, to obtain any seats in the parliament...
– are entitled to levelling seats.
For the elections of 2005 and 2009 the distribution of seats, including levelling seats, is as follows:
| County | Seats |
|---|---|
| Østfold Østfold is a county in southeastern Norway, bordering Akershus and southwestern Sweden , while Buskerud and Vestfold is on the other side of the bay. The seat of the county administration is Sarpsborg, and Fredrikstad is the largest city.Many manufacturing facilities are situated here. Moss and... |
9 |
| Akershus Akershus - Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum... |
16 |
| Oslo Oslo Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King... |
17 |
| Hedmark Hedmark is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Akershus. The county administration is in Hamar.Hedmark makes up the northeastern part of Østlandet, the southeastern part of the country. It includes a long part of the borderline with Sweden, Dalarna County and Värmland County. The... |
8 |
| Oppland Oppland is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. The county administration is in Lillehammer. Oppland is, together with Hedmark, one of the only two landlocked counties of Norway.... |
7 |
| Buskerud Buskerud is a county in Norway, bordering Akershus, Oslo, Oppland, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland, Telemark, and Vestfold. The county administration is located in Drammen.-Geography:... |
9 |
| Vestfold Vestfold is a county in Norway, bordering Buskerud and Telemark. The county administration is in Tønsberg.Vestfold is located west of the Oslofjord, as the name indicates. It includes many smaller, but well-known towns in Norway, such as Larvik, Sandefjord, Tønsberg and Horten. The river Numedalslågen runs... |
7 |
| Telemark Telemark is a county in Norway, bordering Vestfold, Buskerud, Hordaland, Rogaland and Aust-Agder. The county administration is in Skien. Until 1919 the county was known as Bratsberg amt.-Location:... |
6 |
| Aust-Agder Aust-Agder is a county in Norway, bordering Telemark, Rogaland, and Vest-Agder. In 2002, there were 102,945 inhabitants, which is 2.2% of the total population in Norway. Its area is . The administrative center of the county is in Arendal.... |
4 |
| Vest-Agder Vest-Agder In the 16th century, Dutch merchant vessels began to visit ports in southern Norway to purchase salmon and other goods. Soon thereafter the export of timber began, as oak from southern Norway was exceptionally well suited for shipbuilding... |
6 |
| Rogaland Rogaland is a county in Western Norway, bordering Hordaland, Telemark, Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder. It is the center of the Norwegian petroleum industry, and as a result of this, Rogaland has the lowest unemployment rate of any county in Norway, 1.1%... |
13 |
| Hordaland Hordaland is a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark and Rogaland. Hordaland is the third largest county after Akershus and Oslo by population. The county administration is located in Bergen... |
15 |
| Sogn og Fjordane Sogn og Fjordane is a county in Norway, bordering Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, Buskerud, and Hordaland. The county administration is in the town of Hermansverk in Leikanger municipality while the largest town is Førde.... |
5 |
| Møre og Romsdal Møre og Romsdal is a county in the northernmost part of Western Norway. It borders the counties of Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Sogn og Fjordane. The county administration is located in Molde, while Ålesund is the largest city.-The name:... |
9 |
| Sør-Trøndelag Sør-Trøndelag - References :... |
10 |
| Nord-Trøndelag Nord-Trøndelag is a county constituting the northern part of Trøndelag in Norway. As of 2010, the county had 131,555 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-least populated county. The largest municipalities are Stjørdal, Steinkjer—the county seat, Levanger, Namsos and Verdal, all with between 21,000 and... |
6 |
| Nordland Nordland is a county in Norway in the North Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Nord-Trøndelag in the south, Norrbottens län in Sweden to the east, Västerbottens län to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The county was formerly known as Nordlandene amt. The county administration is... |
10 |
| Troms Troms or Romsa is a county in North Norway, bordering Finnmark to the northeast and Nordland in the southwest. To the south is Norrbotten Län in Sweden and further southeast is a shorter border with Lapland Province in Finland. To the west is the Norwegian Sea... |
7 |
| Finnmark Finnmark or Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens... |
5 |
| Total | 169 |
Local elections
The local elections are two separate elections held at the same time. The first is the countyCounties of Norway
Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 430 municipalities...
election, which elects politicians to the county council
County council (Norway)
A County Council is the highest governing body of the county municipalities in Norway. The county council sets the scope of the county municipal activity. The council is led by a chairman or county mayor...
. Second is the municipality election, which elects politicians to the municipal councils.
Sámi Parliament election
People of SámiSami people
The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...
heritage, included in the Sámi census, are eligible to vote to the Sami Parliament of Norway
Sami Parliament of Norway
The Sami Parliament of Norway is the representative body for people of Sami heritage in Norway. It acts as an institution of cultural autonomy for the indigenous Sami people....
. For the election Norway is divided into 13 constituencies from which 3 representatives are elected. In addition an additional representative is elected from the four constituencies with most votes. The election is held at the same time as the elections to the Norwegian Parliament.
Referendums
- Norwegian referendum on the dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway, 1905
- Norwegian referendum on Prince Charles of Denmark as Norwegian King, 1905Norwegian monarchy plebiscite, 1905The Norwegian Monarchy Plebiscite, 1905 on accepting a republican or monarchial form of state in Norway was held on 12 and 13 November 1905. The voters were to cast a yes or no vote on whether they approved of the decision the Storting had made in authorizing the government to offer the throne of...
- Norwegian Prohibition referendum, 1919Norwegian Prohibition referendum, 1919A referendum on whether Norway should introduce Prohibition was held on October 5 and 6, 1919. A partial prohibition had been in effect since 1917. The prohibition proposal did not include all types of alcohol, only spirits...
- Norwegian Continued Prohibition referendum, 1926Norwegian Continued Prohibition referendum, 1926A consultative and facultative referendum on whether Norway should continue prohibition was held on October 18, 1926. A partial prohibition had been effective since 1917, and a 1919 referendum lay a ban on spirits and dessert wine....
- Norwegian EC referendum, 1972Norwegian EC referendum, 1972A referendum on whether Norway should join the European Community was held on 25 September 1972. After a long period of heated debate, the "No" side won with 53.5 per cent of the vote. Prime Minister Trygve Bratteli resigned as a result of the defeat...
- Norwegian EU referendum, 1994Norwegian EU referendum, 1994A referendum on whether Norway should join the European Union was held on 28 November 1994. After a long period of heated debate, the "No" side won with 52.2 per cent of the vote, on a turnout of 88.6 per cent...
Rules concerning election days
The sale of alcoholic beverageAlcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
s on election days is prohibited by section 3-7 of the Alcohol Act. This is to prevent people from voting under the influence of alcohol.
External links
- Adam Carr's Election Archive
- political parties and elections
- The official government summary of the Norwegian electoral system
- NSD: European Election Database - Norway publishes regional level election data; allows for comparisons of election results, 1993–2009