Talk:List of electoral systems by country/Archive 1

Old Discussion
Will this table just cover the legislature? executive? What is the scope? Also, putting it in some sort of order may help. --Jiang 23:44 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well, the way I imagined it, it would cover national (e.g. British House of Commons) and supernational bodies (e.g. European Parliament), but only those bodies whose members are directly elected by a significant portion of people. I imagined it would only cover the legislature, but I guess we could have executives in another table ("district size" and "threshold" don't make any sense for them, after all).

Also, I can imagine a few schemes for organizing rows: alphabetically, alphabetically by continent, or alphabetically by voting system. DanKeshet - What does district size mean? Rmhermen 04:54 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I added some text to voting systems. Does that answer your question?  DanKeshet 19:17 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Yes but I find it counterintuitive. I would rather see it as US - 435 districts, Israel - 1 district or US 1 per district, Israel 120 per district. Rmhermen 16:19 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * OK, now you have me confused. There are three bits of info we could include:


 * 1) District Size (aka District magnitude aka Seats/District)
 * 2) Number of districts
 * 3) Total number of Seats.
 * For example:


 * Which of these three do you think should be included? Under what headings? DanKeshet 16:40 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * I suppose Seats/District makes sense. District size makes me think of physical or population size of the district. Rmhermen 16:49 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Why not include all three? Martin


 * Sure! We can use your "key" to cut down the size of the table header tags so more can fit in the table. DanKeshet 18:57 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Resources for research:


 * 1) http://www.idea.int/esd/data/world.cfm
 * 2) http://www.idea.int/publications/esd/english/esd_english_part2.pdf

I have saved a page, based mainly on the first link directly above, at Table of voting systems by nation/temp. There are many improvements that need to be made before that's a useful table


 * 1) Integrate the information about the total seats from the second link above.
 * 2) Mark the district size for all of the single-winner systems
 * 3) Fill in the rest of the data we know.
 * 4) Order more coherently (perhaps by system (grouping systems by multiple-winner (grouped by party vs. non-party) vs. single-winner) and then by number of seats?

Peace,

DanKeshet

From talk:table of voting systems by nation/temp: I split the single-winner from the multiple-winner. This cuts down on the number of non-applicable and redundant fields, as any system using FPTP will by definition have a district size of 1, and no election threshold.

In order to edit these files, I have imported the tables into Openoffice.org calc, sorted them, then "exported as webpage", and cleaned-up the HTML afterwards with emacs. I may write a script for cleaning up the Openoffice results.

Lastly, somebody changed the Belgium election threshold to 5%. I thought I had read it was 0. Was I wrong?

DanKeshet

Even though this chart is not yet finished, it is a great improvement over what we have at Table of voting systems by nation. I suggest we move this there now and worry about finishing later.

Yeah, add the Senate back in. Why not?

--Jiang 21:14 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

OK, I'll move this to the real page soon, but first, I have a file that has the number of seats in each parliament, by country, and soon I'll be able to insert this data into each country on the list. When I can get that done, I'll move it there. DanKeshet --- Could we change list to party list? It just doesn't seem right. Rmhermen 18:00 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Yes. That's much better.  DanKeshet 20:09 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The Australian senate has districts of 2 or 12, but nothing in between?! How bizarre! How did that come about? DanKeshet
 * See Australian_Senate pm67nz


 * OK, that's not bizarre at all. But I'm still confused by the wording.  It says that usually, half of the Senate is elected at a time.  Does this mean that half the states elect their full 12-seat slate?  Or that each state elects six senators, in which case the "district size" would be 6, just as the "district size" in the US senate is 1 because you only elect 1 senator at a time, even though 2 senators come from that state? DanKeshet


 * True, from a voting systems point of view the district size is 6. I'll change it.  pm67nz

I'd be interested in seeing a list of the counties that don't have a voting system, either that or link to such a list.

A few things: 1) our formatting for both Parallel and AMS systems is pretty messed up. Saying Parallel-FPTP is bad enough; but then we mix in a Parallel-Party list!  I'll bet the two countries have the exact same system.  Do we need a third table for Parallel systems so we can have different slots for their two systems?  Or should we go through and change Parallel-FPTP to Parallel (FPTP,Party List)?

Two: I'd like to include notes about whether the PR systems are closed- or open- list. Should I have a new category or just include it in their name? Like "d'Hondt (closed list)"? DanKeshet 20:08, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)

This page is in need of a serious edit/touch up. As others have said, there is some that say Parallel-FPTP, some that say Parallel-Party List and some that say AMS yet most of these mean the same thing. Not only that but a few say Saint Laguna and d Honge (or whatever they're called) which are basically just ways to count for AMS!

Incomplete tables
Considering this article was started 2 years ago, it looks very incomplete. Especially for the bodies there are mostly blanks. Isn't that just a matter of looking these things up in the articles for the respective countries and is it then just that nobody has taken the time? (Or would that constitute informational incest, or what should I call it?)

Also, only three countries (Poland, Spain and USA) have more than one body listed, but there must be more such countries (eg the Netherlands and the UK). And in the USA there are elections for house of representatives, senate and president, but the last one isn't listed.

Oh, and one thing confuses me. How can you have a parliament in a single-winner voting system? Just one person having a parley with himself? :) Ok, I assume that means that, for example, a single person is elected per district to sit in parliament. But that should then be made more clear. Although I understand that explaining all the possible political voting systems may be beyond the scope of this article.

For another thing; some body-links are to a generic article (eg parliament) while others link to the specific body of that country (eg Canadian House of Commoms). That should be more consistent.

Finally, wouldn't it make more sense to have the country-names link to the politics article (if any) or at least the politics section in the main article for the country?

DirkvdM 17:58, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

Afghanistan missing
Afghanistan is currently missing from the list. I'm not exactly sure what voting system they're using, however - The Economist said they are using Single Non-transferable Vote, but in the same article they also referred to candidates for parliament coming in second-place, implying that they didn't win a seat (which would not be SNTV but instead first-past-the-post.) Does anyone know for sure? Scott Ritchie 01:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Merging it back into one table from two
A while ago, this was split into two tables, however I feel it might be a lot easier to use if we merge it back into one. Having a country listed in two separate tables is a bit burdensome, and the problem of "redundant fields" (namely threshold) isn't really that big of an issue. Scott Ritchie 04:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Preventing an edit war
Ok, two users (User:Alanmak and User:Instantnood) have been reverting the page back and forth without bringing it up in talk. Please do so here. Thanks! Scott Ritchie 02:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes problem
The footnotes are currently messed up -- 25 identified in the table, but only five actually present. I'd offer to help correct this, but I'm not sure what the final goal is supposed to be...... JXM 16:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You're right, they need to be find/replaced with the original format that all links to the same footnote. Scott Ritchie 07:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Party-block vs Bloc Voting
From what I understand of bloc voting, it is different from party-block voting. Someone with more free time than I do, please remove the links linking "Party-block voting" to "Bloc Voting".

Party Block Voting -- party fields in more than n candidates, party wins majority, all candidates win seats (less democratic, much worse than FPTP)

Bloc Voting -- many candidates running for n seats, top n candidates get seats (much more democratic)

Israel
The info about Israel (d'Hondt method) is a bit misguiding. In Israel, seats are initially allocated simply by calculating an index for a single seat, by dividing the total number of valid votes (minus the votes for the parties which didn't pass the threshold) by 120. Then, parties are allocated seats according to the index. For example, if party X got 420,000 votes and each seat is worth 40,000 votes, it gets 10 seats. Only then, for the remainder seats, the d'Hondt method is used. So the first d'Hondt quotient for party X would be 420,000/11. The system is complicated further by allowing "remainder agreements" between any two parties, so that their combined d'Hondt quotient would be larger. If the pair get a seat, the party with the largest (seperate) quotient gets it.

So as you can see, the Israeli system is not classic d'Hondt, and perhaps deserves an article of its own. But what should we write in the table? Maybe add this info as a footnote? --84.229.192.196 00:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Changes
I've merged the tables and put in links to the various things that get elected for each country. To me it seems logical that the tables be merged -- if I want to see what electoral system Colombia uses, I want to go to the C's and look for Colombia, and not have to then check another table to see if they elect something else using a different system.

I've left blank lots of cells in the table. Some of these are because it's obvious -- there is only one elected member in a FPTP district -- and some are because I couldn't find the actual answers.

I've been lazy about open and closed lists, and forgotten to mention most of them.

There are almost certainly some errors at random places in the table. aceproject.org and relevant Wikipedia articles disagree sometimes.

Probably some of the footnotes could go, but I'm exhausted and can't be bothered working out what to do with them.

I've left out some countries by oversight. Pappubahry 05:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggested correction for Denmark: Method: "d'Hondt with Sainte-Laguë additional seat selection." as the simplest one-sentence description I can think of (note additional/alternative seats rather than members - the members are from the same lists). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.126.174 (talk) 09:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC) That comment was added by me - reference is here: http://valg.sm.dk/valgsystem/Documents/opgoer-FTvalg.pdf

If you need help reading the Danish, let me know!Nik (talk) 13:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Chile
The voting system for the Chamber of Deputies and Senate is not D'Hondt method. I'm not an expert and I don't know the real name of the system, but here is called sistema binominal. The D'Hondt method is used in the municipal elections. --B1mbo 05:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You're right, and I've changed it accordingly. Pappubahry 06:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I've changed it back to D'Hondt: The sistema bionominal used in Chile means: every district has two seats and every list has two candidates. When the first list has more than twice the votes of the second list, the first list gets both seats, in the other case the first and second list get one seat each. That's exactly what D'Hondt would do. SNTV on the other hand would give the two seats to the two best candidates, irrespective on which list they are.
 * Example:

list A: 67% votes candidate A1: 52% candidate A2: 15% list B: 33% votes candidate B1: 17% candidate B2: 16% Elected are both candidates of list A, with SNTV it would be candidates A1 and B1. Bancki 13:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bancki (talk • contribs) 13:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC).
 * OK, according to ipu.org the requirement to get the two seats is to get two-thirds of the vote, but most sources agree with you that you need double the second-placed list. Pappubahry 22:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

New Discussion
A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 13:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed new column: Voting Rights
Who is allowed to vote is just as important a question as the system used. I propose adding a new column indicating who has voting rights for the particular election, especially when this varies across bodies for a particular country. For example, in the Netherlands:

It's a lot of work to add such a column, though, so I'd like some feedback before starting it. Scott Ritchie (talk) 01:18, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Burundi does not use Electoral College
Thank you all for your contributions to this very important Wikipedia article. I consult it many, many, many times in my advocacy work to improve the voting system in my home country.

A friend pointed out to me that the President of Burundi is not elected by electoral college. Indeed, the wikipedia article Burundian presidential election, 2010 states: "Unlike the 2005 election, the 2010 election was a direct election by all voters, not by parliament." Since there was only one candidate however, it is not clear to me if it would be an ranked ballot (Instant Runoff / Alternative Vote) or by single member plurality. Thoughts?

jlam (talk) 03:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

United States is wrong
The Congress isn't all FPTP. Several states have top-two primaries. Other states, especially in the South, have French-style runoffs if nobody gets a majority, as seen in 2008 in Georgia. Before I make changes, does anyone have the exact breakdown as to which states, and the number of seats, use each method? -LtNOWIS (talk) 12:58, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I updated this after more than 1 year in limbo. – H T  D  16:00, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, I updated it stating that two states (GA & LA) uses runoffs. This might be wrong and/or incomplete. – H T  D  17:43, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Tunisia and Nepal: Constituent Assemblies
For Tunisia and Nepal, I would mention the electoral system for their current cosnitutent Assembly (see Tunisian Constituent Assembly election, 2011, Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, 2008 and 2013) and not for some superseded 'regular' parliament.--Bancki (talk) 14:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC) Agreed. Tunisian one is now for the next election which is the new parliament.Øln (talk) 08:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

List-PR
If a country uses List-PR and the district magnitude is given, it is not that infuential which inter-list allocation system it uses (e.g. D'Hondt), and more interesting how candidates get elected inside each lsit (e.g. closed list). I would start with the overall description "List-PR", followed (if known) with further details such as the inter-list allocation system (e.g. D'Hondt) and the intra-list system (e.g. closed list).--Bancki (talk) 14:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC) Agreed, though I would maybe put open/closed before allocation system, see post below Øln (talk) 08:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Only directly elected national level institutions
I would only mention the electoral system for institutions who are:

- elected at the national level, so I would exclude from the row of the UK all others except the House of Commons

- elected directly, so I would exclude the presidents of Malta and India and the upper houses of Burundi, France, India, Ireland and the Netherlands.--Bancki (talk) 14:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer the inclusion on indirectly-elected offices. The U.S. president is an example of this. I'm in favor though of limiting it to national offices. – H T  D  15:08, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Missing countries
Missing countries: China (People's Republic) (If Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam are mentioned, why not China ?), Libya, Oman, Sudan, Swaziland (some other countries are omitted correctly as they don't have elections: Brunei, Eritrea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, United Arab Emirates)

If Aruba is mentioned, why not Curaçao and Sint Maarten? If Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Montserrat are mentioned, why not other U.K. overseas territories (like Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, ...) and the crown dependencies Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey? What with similar territories of other countries (Faroe Islands and Greenland, Puerto Rico,...)? I would stick to those mentioned in the List of sovereign states and delete all others (like Aruba, Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Montserrat) but with a possible exception for Hong Kong and Macau.Bancki (talk) 09:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there is any reason why most of the things you have mentioned are missing besides "no one has added them yet", aside from China as they don't have direct elections to the national parliament as far as I know. North Korea, Cuba and I think Laos does have direct "elections" in the sense that citizens are able to vote even if they are not fair in any way. I'm not sure about whether the Vietnamese parliament is directly "elected" or if it's indirect like China. Otherwise, using that list seems good to me at least.Øln (talk) 10:16, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Missing directly elected presidents
Czech republic (since 2013): two round majority, term of 5 years

Montenegro : two round majority, term of 5 years

I would delete the presidents of India and Malta as they are not directly elected. Bancki (talk) 09:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Missing directly elected upper houses
Senate of Haiti : 30 members, 10 departments with 3 seats each, term of 6 years, renewed by thirds (one seat per department), two round majority

Senate of Kenya (since 2013) : 67 members, term of 5 years : 47 directly elected (47 counties with one each, FPTP) + 20 nominated (16 women, 2 youth and 2 disabled) by the parties according to their share of elected seats

I would delete the upper houses of Belgium, Burundi, France, India, Ireland and the Netherlands as they are not directly elected.Bancki (talk) 09:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Format and what to include
The tables are inconsistent in several ways, so I think we need to have a discussion about what to include. Øln (talk) 08:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it would be best to split the table, possibly into two articles, one for legislatures and one for head of state. There are several columns that are not used for head of state such as district sizes, and it would make the tables cleaner. I don't see much value in having both in one table. Having upper and lower houses in the same table makes sense, but that could also be split.
 * Many of the systems have several names, I think we should use the one that the article about the system uses, which for instance means using "Two-round system" over runoff, and First-past-the-post over single member plurality. Right now the table is somewhat inconsistent in this regard. I am not sure about whether to abbreviate or not though, but I think it would be ok.
 * Formats for the systems also needs to be consistent, I think the type should go first, then the detailed info. For countries using majority bonuses (Greece, San Marino), that could possibly go first to differentiate from other PR systems. My thoughts:
 * For party lists I think the suggestion above is good, though I think the distribution method should be last, as some countries use multiple tiers with different distribution methods, e.g Austria. Maybe we could get away with not having to put in both party list and open/closed, and only use open/closed, however what's used can be difficult to find out in some cases as this is not the most commonly written about topic out there. Maybe we could also differentiate between different types of open lists if information is available.
 * Example: Party list PR (Open list) Sainte-Laguë method
 * Parallel systems: Here I am not sure whether party lists or constituency methods should be first. Most if not all national legislatures using this seem to use party lists in some form for one of the methods, but otherwise varies mostly between FPTP, Two rounds. Which one elects the most members also varies greatly. In some cases such as Hungary and Mexico, there is some weak linkage between the list and constituency parts,  which makes me unsure if parallel is the correct term.
 * Example: Parallel voting Party list PR (Closed list) D'Hondt method / FPTP
 * Another question is what to include. I think the focus should be on national legislatures and heads of state (but preferably separate tables). I don't know if we should include heads of state elected by legislature, and non-elected legislatures. On one hand the article is about electoral systems, on the other hand the table would be more complete having a full list. Then there is also the question about what constitutes a country (should we have disputed territories for instance.), not sure what's common in other list on wikipedia.
 * I'd very much agree in splitting the table, and on standardizing the names. I'd prefer on using what the actual articles are called, with preference on using acronyms for things such as "FPTP", "PR", "STV" and the like. In the end, I'd want to include heads of state and legislatures which are "somehow elected" such those appointed (essentially an election by one person), while excluding hereditary monarchies. As for countries, I'd prefer to use list of countries. – H T  D  16:00, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

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United Kingdom
The article should mention that the Northern Ireland Assembly, Welsh Assembly, London Assembly and Scottish Parliament all use D'Hondt AFAIK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.82.81.40 (talk) 19:00, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Armenia
Parliamentary electoral system used in Armenia since 2017 is IMHO best described as Mixed-Member Proportional. While info in the table is correct, the corresponding map needs to be updated.Darwwin (talk) 11:37, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Proposal for a new format
I recently came across this article and thought it might need some attention. It has the potential to be a really informative and interesting resource, but there are a few problems holding it back:


 * The lead is very short, and doesn't explain what an electoral system is, why they are important or the differences between them.
 * The list contains blank spaces, technical language and abbreviations that are likely confuse the reader.
 * The use of inline citations is patchy, with some rows unsourced or reliant on 20-year-old data such as this

I have come up with a new table format that I hope will solve the latter two points. From left to right, the changes to the columns are:
 * Country: added each country's flag. Purely aesthetic I know, but it brightens the otherwise grey table up somewhat.
 * Body: Added the legislature's name in the main language(s) of each country. This can be omitted when the native name is in English or is widely used (such as Bundestag).
 * Type: New column; each cell should be one from head of state, upper house, lower house, or unicameral house.
 * System: Added coloured bar which matches the map at the top, and simplified the wording so that any extra information (like the counting method) goes elsewhere.
 * Details: New column to replace "Threshold" and "Seats per district"; a short summary of facts such as district magnitude, term length and electoral thresholds. This reduces the need for shorthand and jargon in the table, and could just as easily be a bulleted list instead of prose.
 * Total seats: unchanged
 * Refs: The information for each country should be sourced from entries at four online databases (IFES Election Guide, ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, IPU Parline and International IDEA), as well as legislation or news articles where appropriate. Using an inline citation for every reference to the database may prove problematic (4 references for each 200 of countries will be 800 in total), so we might have to create short footnotes using sfn or similar.

You can see an example of this format here. I'd be grateful for any feedback you might have on this, and whether you think this is the right way forward for the article. Should there be support for this format, I propose creating a draft or wikispace page that any interested editors could work on until all countries are updated, at which point we would roll it out to the article. Combined with a well-written introduction, I believe we could be looking at meeting the featured list criteria within a few months. Thanks for reading, PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 22:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * A lead would be great of course
 * Flags are entirely unnecessary, there's a lot of country-based lists and it's rarely relevant.
 * Local language is also unnecessary if it's just a translation. List of legislatures by country has that, but just focus on the electoral systems here without extraneous details.
 * Don't make up WP:COLORS. It's meaningless to the row and doesn't contribute to the table. The key with the map is plenty adequate.
 * The benefits of the threshold and seats per district columns is that they're sortable. A prose summary is excellent though!
 * Upon a glance of the Afghanistan links, the ACE project link doesn't look as useful; the others are probably adequate but idk if so for all. It doesn't need to take up its own column though, put them with the prose summary.
 * I'm an FLC regular and this would be a great article for FL, looking forward to seeing it, thanks! Reywas92Talk 23:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review. I must have linked the wrong page in the Afghanistan row, it should be sourced to, which has more details. I'll take on board the suggestions about flags and colours etc, you are probably right about not wanting unnecessary detail. Thanks, PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 08:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with the proposal to split head of state/upper house/lower house into columns, so they become sortable. I don't believe that the columns for district magnitude, threshold or term length are necessary or helpful. District magnitude will simply be 1 for most FPTP countries, and in some cases is N/A as there are no districts, while thresholds don't exist in several systems; both of these are arguably superfluous when this article's aim is to list electoral systems – if a country uses open-list proportional representation, I can't really see why we need to say how many candidates are elected from each constituency. Term length is simply irrelevant as far as I can see (and arguably pointless for countries where snap elections can be called).
 * I'd slim it down to the basics, as below; in cases where there are mixed systems, I would list the main type first. Cheers, Number   5  7  20:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

!rowspan=2|Country!!colspan=2|Head of State!!colspan=2|Upper house!!colspan=2|Lower or unicameral house !Name!!Electoral system!!Name!!Electoral system!!Name!!Electoral system
 * Afghanistan||President||Two-round system||House of Elders||bgcolor=#ececec|Indirectly-elected (68) Appointed (34)||House of the People||Single non-transferable vote
 * Albania||President||bgcolor=#ececec|Elected by Parliament||bgcolor=#ececec colspan=2| ||Parliament||Closed list proportional representation
 * United Kingdom||Monarch||bgcolor=#ececec|Hereditary||House of Lords||bgcolor=#ececec|Appointed Indirectly-elected (90) Ex-officio (2)||House of Commons||First-past-the-post voting
 * United States||President||Electoral College||Senate||First-past-the-post voting (41 states) Nonpartisan blanket primary (4 states) Two-round system (3 states) Instant-runoff voting (2 states)||House of Representatives||First-past-the-post voting (41 states) Nonpartisan blanket primary (4 states) Two-round system (3 states) Instant-runoff voting (2 states)
 * }
 * United Kingdom||Monarch||bgcolor=#ececec|Hereditary||House of Lords||bgcolor=#ececec|Appointed Indirectly-elected (90) Ex-officio (2)||House of Commons||First-past-the-post voting
 * United States||President||Electoral College||Senate||First-past-the-post voting (41 states) Nonpartisan blanket primary (4 states) Two-round system (3 states) Instant-runoff voting (2 states)||House of Representatives||First-past-the-post voting (41 states) Nonpartisan blanket primary (4 states) Two-round system (3 states) Instant-runoff voting (2 states)
 * }
 * }

Should we separate head of state (s)elections and parliamentary ones into different sections? Howard the Duck (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

We also have separate articles for term of office and electoral threshold, so I guess assuming those are complete the reader can be bothered to visit two separate articles for related concepts. I dunno if there are other articles that show district magnitude, but there are several legislatures where the magnitude is >1 and it is not proportional, or that the district magnitude is >1, but each "seat" is elected at separate elections (like the US Senate). Howard the Duck (talk) 15:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I have re-drafted my original version, removing information about term length, and giving each type of body its own column, as in the example above:
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

!rowspan=2|Country !colspan=3|Head of State !colspan=4|Lower or Unicameral House !colspan=4|Upper House !Name !System !Details !Name !System !Details !Seats !Name !System !Details !Seats !Afghanistan !Albania ! Algeria ! Andorra
 * President
 * Two-round system
 * If no candidate attains an absolute majority in the first round of voting, a runoff vote is held to determine the winner.
 * House of the People
 * Single non-transferable vote
 * All of the members are elected in 34 multi-member constituencies, each of which elects between two and 33 members.
 * 250
 * House of Elders
 * Indirect election and appointed
 * The district councils and provincial councils elect one-third of members each. The remaining members are appointed by the president.
 * 102
 * President
 * Election by legislature
 * The president is chosen by Parliament, with a candidate requiring a three-fifths majority to be elected.
 * Parliament
 * Party-list proportional representation
 * All of the members are elected using a closed list system in 12 multi-member constituencies, with seats allocated by the D'Hondt method. An electoral threshold of 3% is in place for parties, rising to 5% for electoral coalitions.
 * 140
 * colspan=4|
 * President
 * Two-round system
 * If no candidate attains an absolute majority in the first round of voting, a runoff vote is held to determine the winner.
 * People's National Assembly
 * Party-list proportional representation
 * All of the members are elected using a closed list system in 48 multi-member constituencies, with seats being allocated by the largest remainder method. Parties must receive 5% of the vote to be eligible for seats in a district.
 * 462
 * Council of the Nation
 * Indirect election and appointed
 * Two-thirds (96) of the members are elected by an electoral college of local representatives, with 48 members elected every three years. The remaining 48 members are appointed by the president.
 * 144
 * Co-Princes
 * Unelected
 * The bishop of Urgell and the president of France are joint heads of state (co-princes) by virtue of their offices.
 * General Council
 * Parallel voting
 * Half (14) of the members are elected by block voting in two-member constituencies. The remaining 14 members are elected by party list proportional representation using a closed list system.
 * 28
 * colspan=4|
 * }
 * I am not totally convinced that this is a great layout due to the amount of wasted space for countries with unicameral parliaments, but I agree that the sorting by upper house/lower house would be useful. I think the "System" column should be as brief as possible, with each parliament being listed as using one of about ten main systems. Any other information can go in the "Details" column (I have kept the information about thresholds in this column, but if others think this isn't useful then it can be omitted). Thanks, PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 22:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The details could have very easily been denoted by two different columns of district magnitude and number of districts, occupying much less space, but here we are... Howard the Duck (talk) 22:57, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Do we really need to go into this much detail in the list? I think details of the system can be covered briefly like in the first table. I definitely don't think we need another column for seats, and that non-directly elected heads of state/legislatures should be greyed out to differentiate them. Number   5  7  00:49, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * My original idea for the details summary was to combine information about thresholds and district magnitude into prose for neatness, as the table currently on the page has lots of blank spaces and confusing shorthand. I don't think we should cut all of this information out, as otherwise there is no point in having this list at all, seeing as what's left is already given in more detail at List of legislatures by country. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 10:12, 6 February 2021 (UTC)