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Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively vote for only political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some influence, that would be called an open list. Closed list systems are still commonly used in party-list proportional representation, and most mixed electoral systems also use closed lists in their party list component. Many countries, however have changed their electoral systems to use open lists to incorporate personalised representation to their proportional systems.

In closed list systems, each political party has pre-decided who will receive the seats allocated to that party in the elections,^[1] so that the candidates positioned highest on this list tend to always get a seat in the parliament while the candidates positioned very low on the closed list will not. However, the candidates "at the water mark" of a given party are in the position of either losing or winning their seat depending on the number of votes the party gets. "The water mark" is the number of seats a specific party can be expected to achieve. The number of seats that the party wins, combined with the candidates' positions on the party's list, will then determine whether a particular candidate will get a seat.

List of countries using closed list systems

Proportional representation

Algeria
Angola
Argentina
Armenia
Benin
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Colombia (depending on the party)
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic^[2]
East Timor
Equatorial Guinea
Guatemala
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Hong Kong (1997-2016)
Israel
Kazakhstan^[3]
Kyrgyzstan
Lithuania (1992-1997) (Seimas and municipalities' councils)
Moldova
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Namibia^[4]
Nicaragua
Niger
North Macedonia
Norway (de facto)
Paraguay
Portugal
Romania^[5]
Rwanda
Serbia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Togo
Tunisia
Turkey
Uruguay
Wales(from 2026)^[6]

Mixed electoral systems

Mixed electoral system using closed lists for the proportional component

Andorra
Hungary
Germany (mixed-member proportional representation)
Italy
New Zealand (mixed-member proportional representation)
Russia
Scotland
Taiwan
Wales (1999-2026)

Majoritarian representation

Party block voting (general ticket) with a closed list

Côte d'Ivoire (party block voting in multi-member districts)
Singapore (party block voting in multi-member districts)
United States (electoral college)

References

^ "Open, Closed and Free Lists —". ACE Project. Archived from the original on 28 June 2020. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
^ "{title}". Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 November 2015. Retrieved 2 September 2018.
^ Lundberg, Thomas Carl (22 October 2010). "Post-communism and the abandonment of mixedmember electoral systems" (PDF). University of Glasgow. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 January 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
^ "Elections - GRN Portal". www.ecn.na. Archived from the original on 21 July 2018. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
^ Filimon, Paul (20 July 2015). "Legea ALEGERILOR PARLAMENTARE pe LISTE, promulgată de Iohannis". România Liberă (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 2 July 2017. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
^ "Historic Act strengthens democracy in Wales | GOV.WALES". 24 June 2024.