The bill includes a 7 day nomination period and a 7 day voting period, and a new voting system, the Modified Sainte-Laguë system, which is currently in use in Sweden, Nepal and Norway. Under the new system (if implemented), the total votes for each party will go through a set of divisors to determine how many seats are allocated to each party. The 'modified' system is slightly different to the normal Sainte-Laguë method, in that the first divisor is replaced by 1.4, instead of 1. The divisors are odd numbers in the following sequence: 1.4, 3, 5, 7... and so on until all seats are allocated.
Under this new system, the electorate can 'abstain' from voting by selecting an 'abstain' option after all the candidates names. Voters can no longer vote for or against a particular candidate, and accoring to the bill: (Section 6) 1c. 'means shall be provided for the voter to choose ONE and only ONE candidate of
their preference.'
'2. For a ballot to be valid, the elector must indicate one and one only party to which he or she
wishes to give his or her vote, or else indicate the "abstain" option.'
Two Deputies have so far indicated their support for the bill in the Chamber, with no ammendments, while one deputy has indicated he will probably support the bill, while another has yet to decide.
In order to help understand how the new method of voting will work, Citaxhien has used the results of the last general election to produce what would have happened under the system (although accuracy can be contested, since the 'no' and 'abstention' votes for each individual candiate cannot be taken into account - under the new system, electors can only abstain once, for the whole ballot paper). But here is what we think would have happened at the last general election had the new system been in place:
Yellow = First seat(s) won by partiesGreen = Second seat(s) won by parties
As we can see, Dav Rôibeardét, Independent, would have won two seats, leaving an extra seat vacant, like under the old system.
And here is the votes to seats ratio:
