Grand Council of Aargau
The Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau, the Parliament of the Canton of Aargau. It meets in the parliament building in Aarau and is the supreme legislative and supervising authority of the canton. Its 140 members are elected by proportional representation for four years, said biproportionale allocation process comes after Pukelsheim ( double Pukelsheim ) apply. The official year begins with the month of May, the meetings are always held on a Tuesday. The current term of office, therefore, goes from May 2009 to April 2013, the last complete re-election was held in conjunction with the Executive Council election on 21 October 2012.; the term of office of the newly elected Grand Council is now set from 1 April 2013 to 31 December 2016.
- 4.1 quorum
- 4.2 seat allocation method 4.2.1 Upper allocation
- 4.2.2 Allocation
Tasks
Aargauische cantonal constitution regulates in Articles 76 ff of the powers of the Great Council. It is, therefore, the legislature and supreme supervisory authority in Canton, consists of 140 members and is elected for four years.
The Grand Council elects the president for one year and two alternates; these represent the Presidium of the Grand Council dar. In addition, the Great Council shall elect for a term of four years, the members and president of the cantonal courts.
The Panel shall be deemed competent to stand trial, if at least 71 Members present (Art. 27 Annual Traffic Act GVG ).
The Grand Council approves laws or its modification or repeal, and it requires a two-time consultations (Art. 78). For legislation to enter into force tolerates no delay, the immediate entry into force may be decided when it expresses an absolute majority of all members of the Great Council.
In principle, decisions of the referendum are, if they involve constitutional amendments. Also a must before people come resolutions that have not passed by the absolute majority of all members of the Grand Council. Even in the presence of an absolute majority, a quarter of the members of parliament to demand a referendum (mandatory referendum, Article 62 of the cantonal constitution ).
On the other hand, can be brought about by an optional referendum vote if at least 3,000 voters this demand (Article 63 of the cantonal constitution ). This request must be submitted within 90 days after publication of the decision (Art. 41 Law on Political Rights ).
In decisions on new financial commitments in the canton of the Cantonal has the right to decide on issues unique natural to CHF 5 million or spending recurring nature up to CHF 500'000 free. Above these limits, it is possible to impute precipitated by the Cantonal Council decisions by facultative referendum a plebiscite.
There is also the possibility of popular initiative. 3000 voters may request by request by the Grand Council to bring about a constitutional or legislative change. (Art. 64 of the cantonal constitution ) applies here a period of twelve months following the publication by the initiators (Art. 54 Law on Political Rights ).
Parties
In the elections of 1997 and 2012 being beaten parties reached the following seat numbers and voting rights. It should be noted that the number of deputies was reduced from 2005 to 140 of 200
Members
Eligibility
Selectable is in principle any voters. Entitled to vote at any Swiss citizens residing in Aargau, which was not incapacitated and 18 years of age (Article 59 of the cantonal constitution ). Constitution and laws emphasize that the right to vote is not only a right but also an obligation. However, anyone who does not exercise his right to vote, will therefore not be punished.
Although governs incompatibility law of the canton of Aargau in Article 1 that relatives and may not be members of the same authority to the second degree, spouses, registered partners and spouses and registered partners of siblings. However, in Article 2 of the Grand Council is exempt from this regulation.
Especially for the Grand Council, shall, however, that no members may belong to him, standing in a public law contract of Canton; as well as the District Officers and their deputies are not eligible for election to the Grand Council and the members of all the higher courts of the canton.
Unlike other cantons there is no term limit for the Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau. Currently, Herbert H. Scholl official oldest with more than 31 years a member of the Grand Council.
Number and distribution of the constituencies
The number of members is 140 (Article 76 of the cantonal constitution ). They are elected by a proportional system in eleven constituencies. The constituencies correspond to the districts, as they are definitiert in Article 103 of the cantonal constitution. The distribution of deputies among the constituencies is indicated by their inhabitants as of 31 December of the second year of the election preceding the election year (Article 4a of Regulation on the Grand Council Election Act ). Opposite the Gesamterneueungswahl of 2009, there were no changes here.
Currently, the following mandate distributions arise in the districts:
Remuneration
The " Law on the organization of the Great Council and the traffic between the Grand Council, the Government and the Supreme Court " or short " e-commerce law, GVG " regulates the remuneration of parliamentarians in principle in Articles 58a and 58b. The remuneration is set out in detail then in the " Decree on the management of the Great Council ," short " the Rules of Procedure, GO ".
The members of the Great Council relating to the participation in the meetings of the Council, of the office and of the Committees an attendance fee of 150 francs. Take one or more sessions on the same day together more than three hours, two, three aligned attendance fees at more than six hours.
In addition, see how to get compensation of 70 cents per kilometer of road is paid. In addition, 30 francs catering compensation per meeting. CHF 120 per day for meals and accommodation expenses will be reimbursed at meetings that take two or more consecutive days and makes a return to the place of residence is not possible or the session history. The right to lecture and expenses funds depends on the presence; this must be demonstrated no later than one hour after the session began by registration in presence list. The President of the Cantonal Council receives an annual lump-sum compensation of CHF 20,000, the Vice President francs each 5,000.
As of January 25, 2014
The opening session of the Legislature 2013-2016 took place on 30 April 2013.
The fractions of SP and the Greens, there are always two Group presidents.
On September 3, 2013 Serge Demuth was sworn. He succeeds the retiring Gusti Ungricht.
In the session on January 7, 2014, there were three new entries: Werner Müller for Heidi Birrer - Reinert; Robert Obrist for Christoph Brun Gehrig; Sandra Lehmann for Felix Jenni
Election procedures and allocation of seats
In the general elections in 2008 for the first time found in the canton of Aargau biproportionale the seat allocation method according Pukelsheim its application. Prior the Hagenbach Bishop method was the (usual even today in many places in Switzerland ) are common, which, systematically, the stronger parties before shared. To compensate for this disadvantage in part, that it was open to smaller parties to enter into Connections list.
Since the application of " double Pukelsheim " list links are no longer permitted (Art. 8 Grand Council Election Act ).
When choosing any voting citizen has as many votes as it mandates awarded in the constituency (Art. 1 Grand Council Election Act ).
It is possible to the counting, but a maximum of two candidate parts can be given. Likewise, candidates can be removed from the list and replaced by other candidates of another list ( cross-voting ). Also, the possibility of creating a free list is (Art. 10 Grand Council Election Act ).
Each party is free to in which of the eleven constituencies it wants to compete with nominations (list ). At the cantonal level are all these lists a party - " lists with the same name " - referred to as the Group list (Art. 13 para 1 Grand Council Election Act ).
Quorum
With the amendment of June 2011, which was approved November 27, 2011 by referendum, a so-called quorum was admitted to the Great Council election law - similar to known in Germany blocking clauses. To be considered in the allocation of seats, the list of groups must meet one of two conditions. It must be achieved either in a district at least 5% of votes party votes; or total number of voters a cantonal share must be achieved, which is at least 3 % (Art. 13 para 2).
The number of voters is a kind of equivalent value for how many voters have supported a party. In the district of Baden with 30 representatives, voters have 30 votes, according to the district of Laufen castle with 7 representatives only 7 votes. The number of voters thus results in each district by the number of party votes is divided by the number of representatives.
The introduction of a quorum was. During the 2012 elections for the SD ( Swiss Democrats ) undoing, they lost the previous two mandates Without Quorum of the SD would have been safe with a choice number of 847, a mandate which they would have received in the district of Kulm. The FDP had there less will receive a mandate. The FDP would instead but in Lenzburg a second mandate obtained at the expense of the EPP, which would come as total cantonal only 5 instead of 6 seats. Has failed because the quorum and the Social Liberal Movement (SLB ), which would have had with a number of 605 voters claim to a mandate and this would have received in the district of Aarau. This would have been charged to the SVP. The SVP, however, would have received a mandate in the 9th district of Baden, at the expense of SP that there would come only four mandates and total cantonal at 21 instead of 22.
Seat allocation method
The allocation process consists of two steps: the upper allotment and sub- allotment.
Upper allocation
The overhead allocation represents the simpler step, because this is initially only be determined what total cantonal seat all claim to be considered list groups.
For this, the party votes obtained are each divided by the number assigned unit mandates at the district level. This gives the respective number of voters - as already mentioned above. The electoral numbers of the individual ( District ) lists are counted per list group. To determine now from these voter numbers the seat claims, an appropriate divisor must be found to the shares the individual voter numbers that the sum of the rounded-off quotient 140 results - the number of seats in the Grand Council (Art. 14 Grand Council Election Act ).
This divisor is called by law as cantonal election keys.
The following table gives the upper allocation for the election results of 2012.
(*) Missed 3 % quorum, but 5.2 % of the party votes received in the district of Kulm
Under allocation
In the sub- allocation, finally, the sharing of passenger claims to the lists in each district should be established.
This is the most complicated part of the seat allocation, because the mandates must be assigned so that each party as possible to conform to their voices results on the number of their seats, are the same but used exactly as many seats in each district, as this mandates entitled.
A matching Listengruppendivisor and again for each list group are found, in the case of the election results of 2012, these were nine figures - which now a matching constituency divisor must be found for each constituency - ie eleven different numbers. The voters of each district numbers are now so by the respective Listengruppendivisor and the constituency - divisor divided and the result rounded (Art. 14a Grand Council Election Act ).
The search for suitable divisors is an iterative process, so you have to look through targeted adaptation of the divisors of the optimal result. In contrast to the Hagenbach -Bischoff method, which leads to computational steps with a fixed number to a result which must be as long as " herumprobiert " until the correct result was achieved when Pukelsheimverfahren. Depending on what baseline you start, this process may require a larger number of calculation steps ( iterations ).
As well as the Hagenbach -Bischoff method can be to find the correct result for different divisors.
The following table shows the sub- allocation of the election results of 2012.
In the cells in each case the party votes and in parentheses are the seats allocated specified. The number of seats in each case results from the division of party votes by Wahlkreisdivisor and Listengruppendivisor with subsequent commercial rounding.
The " double Pukelsheim " weighted voting relations at the cantonal level higher than that at the district level. So it can happen that a party A with less votes still gets more seats than a party B. This was the case in the 2009 elections, when the GLP with 30'882 party votes received two mandates in the district of Baden, while the BDP with 41'512 party votes received only one mandate.