1874 Icelandic parliamentary election

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Parliamentary elections were held in Iceland in the autumn of 1874. [1] The elections were the first after the introduction of a new constitution, which granted legislative and financial powers to the Althing and increased the number of members from 27 to 36. [2] [3]

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Electoral system

The 30 elected members of the Althing were elected from single or double member constituencies by a three-round system; in the first two rounds, a candidate receiving a majority of the vote was elected; if seats were still unfilled after the second round, a third round was held using first-past-the-post voting. [3] Voting took place at a single polling place in each constituency and was done publicly. [3] A further six members were appointed to the upper house by the Danish monarch. [2]

Suffrage was limited to men aged 25 or over who were not in receipt of poor relief and who met one of several set requirements including being a civil servant, being a graduate of a university or seminary, or meeting various tax criteria (for farmers, paying more than the minimum tax; for burghers or fishermen, paying eight króna of local taxes; for property owners, paying twelve króna of local property taxes). [2] This limited the number of voters to 6,183 from a population of 70,595. [4]

Results

1,211 of the 6,183 registered voters participated in the elections. [4] All candidates were independents, as there were no political parties in Iceland at the time. [3]

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References

  1. ↑ "Participation in general elections to the Althingi". Statistics Iceland.
  2. 1 2 3 Daniele Caramani (2017). Elections in Western Europe 1815–1996. Springer. p. 518. ISBN   978-1-349-65508-3.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Arend Lijphart & Bernard Grofman (2007). The Evolution of Electoral and Party Systems in the Nordic Countries. Algora Publishing. pp. 101–108. ISBN   978-0-87586-168-5.
  4. 1 2 Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010). Elections in Europe: A data handbook. Nomos. p. 963. ISBN   978-3-8329-5609-7.
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