Home »
Constitution Making in Nepal » CA Elections
St Lague Formula
How the modified St Lagüe formula works taking the example of a constituency with 10 seats, and 1,200,000 votes cast for 5 parties 1
Allocation of actual number of seats is done by dividing the total number of votes won by each party by a series of divisors. There are various methods but the one chosen for Nepal's CA election is what is known as the modified St Lagüe formula. The series of divisors in this system is 1.4, 3,5,7,9, etc. In the original (unmodified) system the first divisor is 1. This makes it a bit easier for very small parties to get one seat. In other words, the system adopted makes it a bit more difficult for small parties.
| |
Parties and total votes they received |
| |
Party A
400000 |
Party B
100000 |
Party C
200000 |
Party D
50000 |
Party E
550000 |
| Divided by 1.4 result= |
2,85,714 |
71,429 |
142,857 |
35,714 |
392,857 |
| Seats allocated - in order |
2 |
9 |
4 |
|
1 |
| Divided by 3 Result |
1,33,333 |
33,333 |
66,667 |
16,667 |
183,333 |
| Seats allocated - in order |
5 |
|
10 |
|
3 |
| Divided by 5 Result |
80,000 |
20,000 |
40,000 |
10,000 |
1,10,000 |
| Seats allocated - in order |
7 |
|
|
|
6 |
| Divided by 7 Result |
57,143 |
14,286 |
28,571 |
7,143 |
78,571 |
| Seats allocated - in order |
|
|
|
|
8 |
| Total seats for each party |
2 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
4 |
In this example, it would have made no different to the position of the smallest party (D) if the initial divisor had been 1 rather than 1.4. 2
1 This is based on the table in Schedule 5 of the Act, but set out in a way that may be a little clearer. For an example of the formula applied to a whole nation as one constituency see the Elections New Zealand website (http://www.elections.org.nz/mmp/sainte_lague.html). There is a difference in the system there from that proposed for Nepal - in New Zealand the system is MMP, but this does not affect the application of the formula.
2 Anyone who s really technically minded and would like to read a bit more could go to http://janda.org/c24/Readings/Lijphart/Lijphart.html.
|
