Norwegian Parliamentary Election 2013

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Higher turnout is likely both due to the right being energized and due to the Labour Party mobilizing heavily at the last minute.

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I understand it's easy to look at the Norwegian election and see it simply as a case of voters being bored, however:

- Arrogance among the governing parties
- A general sense that they are only managing, not governing, or presenting any visions whatsoever
- The peripheries feeling neglected at the same time as the cities feel they are being neglected as well
- As well as fatigue

Is going to be what defeats the government.

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So exactly the same reason the Alliance government will loose next year over here in the brother land. Our peoples are more alike than either side would like to admit.  

Yeah, pretty much.

Predictions:
Ap - 29,3 - 55 seats
H - 26,5 - 46 seats
FrP - 16,6 - 31 seats
V - 5,9 - 11 seats
KrF - 5,5 - 9 seats
Sp - 4,5 - 8 seats
SV - 4,2 - 6 seats
MdG - 3,0 - 2 seats
Rødt - 2,4 - 1 seat

Red-green - 38,0 - 69
Blue-green-yellow - 54,5 - 97
Rødt + MdG - 5,4 - 3

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Can someone explain how Norway's system works? I know there's a 4% threshold but apparently you can get a seat or 2 even if you get under that.

There are 150 district seats distributed between the counties, these work as in a normal list system. Say if you have approximately a fourth of the vote in Sogn og Fjordane, you get one of the four district seats from there. The 4% threshold is for the so-called "levelling seats" (utjevningsmandater) which exist because the district system alone favors major parties. There are 19 levelling seats, one for each county, and they are distributed among the parties to provide something approaching proportional representation.

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Polls in most of the country close at 9 PM. Exit poll will be published on both NRK and TV2 then. By the way, NRK is making their election night feed accessible outside of Norway:

http://www.nrk.no/valg2013/

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The Maths suggests that they could just about do it without the KrDs, if they're Ok with a majority of 2. Given Progress Libertarian roots it shouldn't be that hard to create a neoliberal alliance devoid of religious traditionalism.

Venstre would not go along with that. The two centrist parties want to be able to rely on each other in government, because alone they could easily be overrun by H and FrP.

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50% in Oslo was without early votes, I think.

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Final Norway-wide turnout will be 78.2%, which is ca. 2% more than in 2009.

1 precinct in Oslo is not yet counted for some reason (ca. 2500 people eligible there).

That would appear to be Sogn High School, which was closed before polling began due to asbestos. Of course, this was not discovered while thousands of students were filed through there over the years, or all the other times it was used as a polling station, or while it was used for special education.

Anyway, buses were set up and people who wanted to vote were moved to different stations.

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Ah, ok. Sucks for the students and teachers. Asbest is quite dangerous.

So, no further votes expected from there.

Turnout remains at 78.1%

It's actually been closed for a few years, and only been used for Norwegian as a Second Language and some disabled groups. It used to be Oslo's big troublemaking school, with more than 2000 vocational students gathered in one place. The asbestos has probably been there for a few years, though...

The big problem for the municipality is that they were planning to reopen it and use it as temporary facilities for a new high school in 2015. Getting rid of the asbestos could take a while.

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All political stereotypes of the city of Oslo can be confirmed in that one map.

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As for the oldest suburb on the western bay shore - are you referring to this borough, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordre_Aker ?
Most of the University is located in that district/borough as well, in the more urban part of it.

I was actually referring to Frogner, though Nordre Aker is even making more sense result-wise. Frogner should probably display quite an internal East-West split, with the East being more urban (green-leftish) and the West quite suburban (Hoyre).

To a certain extent yes, because east Frogner is home to many students. But at the same time, the eastern half is known for being packed with "old money", which means that difference is evened out a bit.

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It is complete bull to argue that reducing the number of fylker (which, by the way, have other responsibilities than being electoral districts, you realize) will increase the number of women in parliament.

It is also complete bogus to argue that forcing parties to run 50% women will improve the situation. I admire the Labour Party for doing it, but I've seen what kind of trouble it can lead to for them as well.

The real reason for there being fewer women than before in Parliament is quite simple - in most fylker, each party can only pick up a single representative. And there are more men heading the lists than women. That's not gender discrimination unto itself.

If people are so concerned about there not being enough women in parliament, they need to get the parties to vote for more women at the top of the lists!

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So, reduce the amount of an administrative unit with actual functions other than being electoral districts to achieve better gender balance in Parliament. Sounds entirely logical to me.

Once again, it's much easier on everyone if people who are concerned about this can go to the party meetings and help nominate women at the top of the lists.

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I certainly agree that the number of fylker needs to be reduced, or replaced with regions. I just find "more women in Parliament" to be an absolutely ridiculous argument for it. Not quite sure how the new constituencies would work out anyways. I mean, say you have 7-8 new regions (which is the most likely alternative at this point). You can't have a constituency like that - how would you get, say, parties in Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud and Akershus to cooperate on a single list?

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Wow, we have about 290 of them in Sweden and we're twice your population. AND the smallest ones here are already ridiculously small.

Several experts have concluded that the ideal number of municipalities is between 100 and 105. Of course, that will never happen - too much opposition. But hopefully we can get something approaching your number.

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Wow, we have about 290 of them in Sweden and we're twice your population. AND the smallest ones here are already ridiculously small.

Haha, you're both cute.

Come on, competing with France in the "ridiculous subdivisions" competition is like trying to fight the entire United States military with a slingshot.

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France ain't got nothing on Pennsylvania:



And that's just one county.

Um, that's actually considerably better than much of France. I do agree that it can get a bit out of hand in PA as well, though.

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In Norway, municipalities are responsible for "primary education (until 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, unemployment and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads."

So more or less correct, Franknburger. The counties are responsible for larger roads (the national government dumped a bunch of national roads in their heads a few years ago), public transport, high schools and dental care.