Overhang seat
Overhang seats can arise in elections under mixed member proportional (MMP), when a party is entitled to less seats according to party votes than it has won constituencies. These overhang seats (for missing votes) remain with the party. (A better explanation, possibly with working example, is needed here - how this arises is not clear to those unfamiliar with the concept)The ways to deal with overhang seats are:
- take the number of overhang seats off from the other parties' seats, e.g. in the Scottish Parliament;
- just allow the overhang (German Bundestag);
- additional balance seats (New Zealand);
- non-awarding of overhang seats (in which case there needs to be a way to determine which constituency seats are kept by the party and which are not).