Electoral threshold

Uncommon card · No. 151580

The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This threshold is set in different ways in different situations. For example, in some party-list proportional representation systems, an electoral threshold requires that a party must receive a specified minimum percentage of votes (e.g. 5%), either nationally or in a particular electoral district, to obtain seats in the legislature. In single transferable voting, the quota acts as an electoral threshold to some degree, and it is possible to achieve it by receiving first-choice votes alone or by a combination of first-choice votes and votes transferred from other candidates based on lesser preferences. It is also a common occurrence in STV to see someone elected with less than the quota. In some mixed-member proportional (MMP) systems, the election threshold determines which parties...

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