1918 Danish Folketing election

1918 Danish Folketing election

← 1915 22 April 1918 April 1920 →

All 140 seats in the Folketing 71 seats needed for a majority

Party Leader % Seats +/– Venstre Klaus Berntsen 29.41 45 +2 Social Democrats Thorvald Stauning 28.66 39 +7 Social Liberals Carl Theodor Zahle 20.67 32 +1 Conservatives Emil Piper 18.29 22 New Industry 1.30 1 New Independents – 0.40 1 +1 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Prime Minister before Prime Minister after Carl Theodor Zahle Social Liberals Carl Theodor Zahle Social Liberals

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Folketing elections were held in Denmark on 22 April 1918,^[1] the first in which women could vote. The result was a victory for Venstre, which won 45 of the 140 seats in the Folketing, which had been expanded from 114 to 140 seats. Voter turnout was 75.5%.^[2]

Electoral system

The Folketing was elected by rural–urban proportional representation. Copenhagen had 24 members elected by party-list proportional representation using the d'Hondt system, while in the rest of the country 93 members (42 in the Danish Islands and 51 in Jutland) were elected in single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post voting. There were a further 23 leveling seats to make the results more proportional.^[3]

Of the 23 leveling seats, twenty (nine in the islands and eleven in Jutland) were allocated on a regional basis, and three (one in the islands and two in Jutland) were allocated based on the nationwide vote (including Copenhagen).^[3] The allocation of candidates to leveling seats was based on a best-loser rule, using a form of Scorporo; in each single-member constituency a Hare quota of votes for the appropriate region was subtracted from the winner's votes and the remainders were pooled at a county level. The candidates with the highest proportion of the votes relative to the region's Hare quota were allocated the leveling seats.^[3]

The 1918 elections were the only ones in Danish history to feature this mixed system.^[4][5] Future elections would be entirely using proportional representation with the single-member districts not affecting the party-level results.

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Venstre	269,646	29.41	45	+2
	Social Democratic Party	262,796	28.66	39	+7
	Danish Social Liberal Party	189,521	20.67	32	+1
	Conservative People's Party	167,743	18.29	22	New
	Industry List	11,934	1.30	1	New
	New Right	4,764	0.52	0	New
	Voters of 1918	4,407	0.48	0	New
	Socialist Workers Party	1,410	0.15	0	New
	Independent Social Democracy	1,086	0.12	0	New
	Independents	3,622	0.40	1	0
Total		916,929	100.00	140	+26
Valid votes		916,929	99.62
Invalid/blank votes		3,468	0.38
Total votes		920,397	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		1,218,901	75.51
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

References