Open list

As preferential vote one more voice of the voter is referred to in a system of proportional representation, which can be delivered in addition to the vote for a party, for a candidate of that party. This candidate will be ranked under specified criteria ( " preferred " ) in the allocation of mandates. Preference votes can be found in Austria in the election for the National Council and the European Parliament elections, in Japan in the choice of a part of the upper house, in the Netherlands at the election of the Parliament of the Second Chamber and in Hamburg and Bremen in the state elections.

The systems vary according to level of relevance threshold at which a preferential vote is ever taken into account. A candidate can not obtain a mandate in spite of this threshold is exceeded, if the party did not receive enough mandates. Conversely, it may be that a candidate due to the amount of preferential votes entitled to a mandate, but this has no relevance, since it would also get this based on the ranking list his place. If the threshold as very high in Austria, so are rarely candidates to train and therefore usually operate a preferential voting campaign. With no or very low threshold when virtually all candidates exceed this, does not decide the party list, but alone the preferential vote on the allocation of MANDANTE to candidates.

Situation in Austria

In elections to the Austrian National Council or to the European Parliament in Austria, each voter has the opportunity, in addition to his vote for a party to choose one person. It is handwritten written under the elected political party or if the list is printed on the ballot, ticked that person the name of the person. There are only people in question, which are on the party list of the elected party for each constituency. The purpose of this regulation is

• The possibility to make to the selected party list Umreihungen and
• Strengthen the personal ties between constituency and MPs.

Using a preferential voting election campaign, candidates can make the leap into parliament on hopeless list seats. This was achieved in 1983 the left wing of the party of the SPÖ associated former activists and today's club chairman Josef Cap and at the 2004 European elections the right-wing nationalist publicists Andreas Mölzer for the FPÖ. To avoid embarrassment, carry out top candidates and other candidates promising places often also preferential voting election campaigns, so that an actual Umreihung very rare.

Since the election of the National Council in 2013 preference votes can at the three levels - will be awarded independently of each other - regional constituency, provincial constituency, federal nomination. A candidate is included in the federal election proposal and can in addition also a candidate in a provincial constituency and / or in a regional constituency. The relevance thresholds are different on the plains:

For all three levels of the following applies:

• The party must have received sufficient in the respective constituency mandates.
• If there are several candidates who have reached or exceeded the relevance threshold, the ranking is the number of first preference votes, followed by the position on the party list of the respective constituency.

In regional constituencies with few mandates, it is difficult to impossible to obtain a preferential votes. For example, the regional constituency Lienz 1 is assigned mandate and, therefore, the party would have 100 % of the valid votes obtained.

Voorkeurstem in the Netherlands

Also exists in the Netherlands for candidates to rear list places the opportunity to be elected to Parliament; this is done by the so-called Voorkeurstemmen. The choice of the second chamber is a list choice with elements of personality choice. The Parties shall in pre-election lists, voters give in choosing a candidate their vote and thus choose the appropriate party. In general, the top candidate ( Lijsttrekker ), who embodies his party in the election campaign gets, by far the largest number of votes. All votes for other candidates votes are called Voorkeurstemmen, they are valid not only the party but also the person who perhaps represents certain groups or has special qualities. The parliamentary seats are nevertheless distributed to the parties in order of list seats. Influence on the composition of the Group have the Voorkeurstemmen only if the following conditions are met:

• Anyone united to become more votes than anyone on the normally eligible for the allocation of seats in question list places
• That person receives the same time a number of votes, which represents 25 % of the so-called Kiesdelers, ie the necessary votes for a seat at least ( the total number of valid votes divided by the number of available seats - currently 150).

Until 1998 was even a minimum requirement of 50% of Kiesdelers. So far it is only twelve candidates managed to get on this path of an unfavorable place to parliament.

Proportional representation seats in the Japanese Upper House

In Sangiin ( " Councils Chamber " ), the upper house of the Japanese national Parliament, 96 of a total of 242 MPs are determined by a proportional representation introduced in 1983. Since the 2001 election Sangiin exists a preferential vote: Instead of a party may name a voter to write the name of an individual proportional representation candidates on the ballot. The voice then counts both for the party in the distribution of proportional representation mandates as a whole and for the candidate in determining the order on the party list. The number of preferential votes will decide without a quorum alone on the order of the list candidates of a party including potential substitutes.