Sveitarstjórnarkosningar - 01.04.1998, Síða 44

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Sveitarstjómarkosningar 1994
the municipality where he or she is domiciled five weeks
before the May election day, irrespective of whether the
election takes place in May or June. Local govemments base
their electoral rolls on preliminary rolls provided by the
National Registry of Persons of Statistics Iceland. The
electoral roll must be made puhlic four weeks prior to the
election and is subject to inspection and alterations as de-
manded by the local govemment and the voters.
Eligibility extends to all persons who have the right to vote
in the municipality concemed and have not been declared
incapable of managing their own affairs.
Suffrage in local govemment elections has been extended
several times since 1930. Thus the voting age has been
lowered ífom 21 years in elections held in 1930-1966, to 20
years in the period 1970-1982 and finally to 18 years since
the 1986 elections. The 1929 Act withheld the right to vote
from those who had been domiciled in a municipality less
than one year before the election and from those who were
indebted to their municipality for public assistance due to
their own laziness, intemperance or negligence. These limi-
tations were removed in 1936 and the Local Govemment Act
of 1961 also removed the condition of unblemished charac-
ter. In 1982 citizens of other Nordic countries gained voting
rights in local govemment elections as explained above. In
1986 the deprivation of legal majority was removed as a
hindrance for the right to vote.
Absentee voting shall begin as soon as possible after
election day has been publicly announced, yet not sooner
than 8 weeks before election day. Absentee votes can he cast
at the office of a district commissioner, at the office or home
of his representatives, on hoard an Icelandic ship under the
command of an Icelandic captain, provided the voter is a
registered crew member, and in Icelandic embassies,
permanant missions, consulates general, and honorary con-
sulates as decided by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs before
each election. District commissioners may conduct absentee
voting at hospitals, old age homes and homes for the disabled
for patients and inmates, and the same applies to prisons.
Upon request, the absentee voting officer can administer
absentee voting in a private home in the case of disease,
disability or childbirth. According to the General Elections
Act the voter no longer has to state a specific reason for
absentee voting.
B. 1994 local government election statistics
Summary 1 gives an overview of the main indicators in
available statistics on local govemment elections from 1930
to 1994.
The number of voters on the electoral roll in the 1994
elections was 186,454, corresponding to 70.1 percent of the
population. Thisisanincreaseof8,971,or5.1 percent,onthe
1990 elections. 17,100 or 9.2 percent ofthe voters were in the
age group 18-21 years, the group that had gained sufffage
since the previous elections. The number of women on the
electoral roll exceeded that of men by 430.
The participation rate in the elections was 86.6 percent,
considerablyhigherthanin 1990 and 1986. Fotthefirsttime
in local govemment elections the participation rate was
higher for women than for men, or 87.1 percent against 86.1
percent. Participation rates are higher in municipalities with
proportional voting, 87.2 percent as against 77.0 percent in
municipalities with direct voting. Absentee votes were 9.6
percent of the votes.
In the elections, 94 municipalities with 5.5 percent of the
electorate voted by direct voting while 77 municipalities with
94.5 percent of the total voted by proportional voting. In
these, 23 9 candidate lists were presented for election, includ-
ing two lists that were elected without a ballot as they were
unopposed in their respective municipalities. The highest
number of candidate lists was five, occurring in seven mu-
nicipalities.
The 239 candidate lists contained the names of 3,313
persons, 2,092 men and 1,221 women. Four lists were com-
posed of men only and four by women only. Women outnum-
bered men or were equal in number on 34 lists while men
outnumbered women on 197 lists.
Out of the total number of votes cast, 161,152, there were
3,254 blankballots and 510 were deemed void. Thus 157,388
valid votes were cast. In municipalities with proportional
voting seats are allocated by employing the D ’ Hondt method.
Local govemment elections differ fforn general elections in
that the candidate lists are often non-party-political or joint
lists of two or more parties. Comparison of results between
municipalities or between election years is therefore diffí-
cult.
A total of 981 representatives were elected to local govem-
ment councils in 1994. Ofthesethere were 739 men and242
women. In municipalities with proportional voting men
make up 72 percent of the total number of representatives
while in municipalities with direct voting, 79 percent of the
total are men. Out of the total number of candidates in
proportional elections, 15.8 percent were elected, 18.0 per-
cent of the male candidates and 12.0 percent of the female
candidates. Women outnumber men on eight councils while
33 councils are composed of men only, 24 in municipalities
with direct voting and 9 with proportional voting.
The 40-44-year age group has the highest number of
elected council representatives while the 45^-9-year age
group has the highest proportion elected. By the age of 60
very few get elected, especially in the urban localities. The
mean age of representatives was 44.3 years.
Among the representatives elected in 1994, 61 percent,
had also been elected one or more times in the period 1978-
1990. This rate was 65 percent for men and 49 percent for
women, while for proportionally elected representatives
these rates were 54 percent and 67 percent for directly elected
representatives. The different rates for men and women are
in part due to the fact that between 1978 and 1994 the number
of women on local govemment councils rose by 170 while
the number of men fell by 361.
Ofthose who were elected in the 1990 local govemment
elections (1,116), 49 percent were re-elected in 1994. This
rate is 50 percent for men and 45 percent for women. Among
those elected in 1978, 96 persons were re-elected in every
election in the period 1982-1994.