Local, Regional, and General elections on the same day...

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Is Sweden the only counrtry besides the US that has the same voting day for all levels of governemnt? It seems strange that we seem to be the only two.
 
In Britain you even move elections to not have them fall on the same day as the general election (Scottish parliament)

[Benj]

Britain has local and national elections on the same day sometimes. They did in 2010.

[doktorb]

Almost every year in the UK has there been dual elections. This is a pretty recent change, as I can remember as recently as the mid-90s when the general election was in April with the local elections in May.

[Јas]

Malawi is planning for this in 2014.

Less than certain whether it will actually happen though. (Local elections haven't been held there since 2001, having been postponed numerous times.)

[ObserverIE]

Almost every year in the UK has there been dual elections. This is a pretty recent change, as I can remember as recently as the mid-90s when the general election was in April with the local elections in May.

1979 was the same day, although the government had collapsed a few weeks before so the date of the general election was forced.

In 1983 and 1987, the local elections were used as a test run to see how the Tories were doing, with the general elections being called the following week.

In 1992, the process was reversed, with the local elections following the Tories' surprise win in April.

In 1997, 2001 and 2005, the two were called for the same day (in 1997 the national government had simply run out of time, but in 2001 and 2005 the coincidence was deliberate).

[Hash]

France often holds regional and cantonal elections on the same day when the cycles coincide like in 1992, 1998 or 2004. However, what is somewhat peculiar to France (afaik) is that the terms of some officeholders are sometimes extended so that there isn't an electoral overload in a single year. In 2007, the 6-year terms of municipal councillors and general councillors elected in 2001 were extended by a year so that they wouldn't fall in 2007 with the presidential/legislative elections. The terms of general councillors in 2004 were extended to 7 years again in 2010 so that elections were held in 2011 rather than 2010 (not sure why, 2010 cantonals would have made more sense)

In Brazil, all gubernatorial and state legislative elections are held with the presidential/congressional elections every four years; only municipal elections are not held then.

[doktorb]

And of course the next PCC elections, which will definitely happen, will be in May 2016, alongside whichever elections are due on that day.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Thanks guys, very intresting. Still seems that Sweden is the only country that does this by design. In other countries the dates might align up by chance, but Sweden seem to be the only country where the law says they're all to be held on the same day.

The only other country where that happens seem to be the US, but there it's not the law of the whole country as States pick their own election days/years and could theoreticly have their State and Local elections in off-years.

[Franzl]

Bavaria put up a huge fight to avoid having their election on the say of the federal one next year. Think they're a week apart now.

[freek]

Thanks guys, very intresting. Still seems that Sweden is the only country that does this by design. In other countries the dates might align up by chance, but Sweden seem to be the only country where the law says they're all to be held on the same day.

The only other country where that happens seem to be the US, but there it's not the law of the whole country as States pick their own election days/years and could theoreticly have their State and Local elections in off-years.

Luxembourg always combines its parliamentary elections with the European elections. The same goes for the regional elections in Belgium, which are also combined with the European elections. Local and provincial elections are also combined in Belgium.

In the Netherlands, combining regular (i.e. not early) local or provincial elections with regular national elections is actually made impossible in the electoral law.
Elections usually take place in the first week of March, but if national elections
coincide with local or provincial elections, the national elections move to the first week of May. Last time this happened was in 2002.

Early local elections are only allowed to take place in case of a merger of municipalities, and are usually somewhere in October of November. In 2006, the early national elections were held together with local elections in 9 new municipalities.

In the past, there have been suggestions to combine the local and provincial elections, to boost turnout (usually the turnout is about 60% for local and 50% for provincial elections).