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European elections
Electoral Registration - April 2009
electoral.registration@kirklees.gov.uk
Yorkshire and the Humber
The voting system
Proportional representation - closed list.
Who am I voting for?
Between three and ten Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to represent your region. The
UK is divided into regions, one for each of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and nine
covering England. Each region is allocated a number of MEPs according to its population.
Yorkshire & the Humber is allocated 6 MEPs.
How to vote
Always read the instructions for filling in the ballot paper carefully, even if you have voted
before. The ballot paper lists political parties and independent candidates. Under each party
name is a list of candidates who wish to represent that party.
Simply put an X (a cross) next to the party or independent candidate that you wish to
vote for.
If you make a mistake then you can ask the polling staff to give you another ballot paper.
Who is elected?
In a given region the allocated seats are awarding using a quota system. The quota is the total
number of votes received by a party or independent candidate divided by the number of seats
already gained in that region +1. So, for a party with no seats the number of votes received is
divided by one, and so stays the same. If the party already has one seat then its number of
votes is divided by two, if it has two seats it is divided by three, and so on. This means that
the more seats you have already won, the harder it is to gain extra seats, so the overall
allocation of seats is more proportional to the number of votes received. The first seat that a
party wins goes to the first person on its list, the second seat to the second person, and so
on, until the party has either not won any more seats or has run out of names on its list. An
independent candidate is treated as though he or she were a party with only one name on its list.
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