To determine the number of seats a party will win in any province, the National Election Committee is using a system of proportional representation.
To establish the number of votes a party needs to win a seat, the NEC will divide the number of valid votes in the province by the number of available seats, according to the NEC procedures.
After that is determined, the NEC will divide the number of votes needed by a political party by the number of votes that party has received.
For example, in Kompong Cham province, there are 18 seats. If there are 600,000 valid votes in the province, the NEC will divide the number of seats by 600,000. The computed number—in this case, 33,333—will be the number of votes a party needs to gain a seat in Kompong Cham.
To find how many seats a party will receive, the NEC then divides the number of votes that party receives by the number of votes a party needs to win a seat.
Using the example above, the NEC will establish the number of seats a party won by the following equation. If, hypothetically, a party gains 400,000 valid votes in this province, the NEC will divide 400,000 by 33,333. The end product, 12, is the number of seats the party will hypothetically win in the province in this example.
In the case of a province where only one seat is available, the NEC will determine who wins the seat by which party receives the most votes in that province.
In 1998, several parties disputed the election results due to confusion over the proportional representation system, yet the NEC does not expect any misunderstandings in the aftermath of this election, Im Suosdey, the head of the NEC, said Tuesday.
“The formula used [in 1998] was not mentioned clearly, but this time it is,” Im Suosdey said.
(Additional reporting by Ryun Patterson)
