House of Representatives (North-Supreria)

Deputy Prime Minister
* NSLP (42)
* GEP (36)
* SPP (22)
* APNS (21)
* NSCP (19)
* JEP (16)
* CCP (16)
* NUP (15)

The **House of Representatives** is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of North Supreria. The Senate is the other one. It has 300 seats, which are filled through elections using party-list proportional representation. The house is located in Superdam, the capital of North Supreria.

## Functions

The House of Representatives is the main legislative body where discussions of proposed legislation and review of the actions of the cabinet take place. Both the Cabinet and the House of Representatives itself have the right to propose legislation; the House of Representatives discusses it and, if adopted by a majority, sends it on to the Senate. Review of the actions of the cabinet takes the form of formal interrogations, which may result in motions urging the cabinet to take, or refrain from, certain actions. No individual may be a member of both parliament and cabinet, except in a caretaker cabinet that has not yet been succeeded when a new House is sworn in.

## Elections

The normal term of the House of Representatives is four years. Elections are called when the government loses the parliament's confidence, the governing coalition breaks down, the term of the House of Representatives expires or when no governing coalition can be formed.

### Parties

###### *Main article: Political parties of North Supreria*

Anyone eligible to vote in North Supreria also has the right to establish a political party and contest in elections for the House of Representatives. Parties wanting to take part must register 60 days before the elections, supplying a nationwide list of no more than 50 candidates (80 if the party already has more than 15 seats). Parties that do not have any sitting candidates in the House of Representatives must also provide 30 signatures of support from residents of each province in which they want to collect votes.

### Party List

Candidate lists are given to voters at least 14 days before the election. Each candidate list is numbered, with the candidate in the first position being known as the frontrunner. The frontrunner is usually appointed by the party to lead its election campaign, and is almost always the party's political leader and candidate for Prime Minister. Parties may choose to compete with different candidate lists in each of the 20 electoral districts, but as seats are allocated on a national rather than district level, most parties have almost identical lists in all districts with candidates running. Only large parties usually have some regional candidates at the bottom of their lists.

### Registration and voting

Citizens of North Supreria aged 18 and over have the right to vote, with the exception of those who have been declared incapable by court because of insanity. Eligible citizens residing in North Supreria are able to vote if they are registered in a municipal population register. Eligible citizens living outside of North Supreria can permanently register to vote at the municipality of Superdam, provided they have a current North Suprerian passport or identity card.

### Allocation of Seats

Once the votes have been counted, the seats are allocated to the parties. The number of valid national votes cast is divided by 300, the number of seats available, to give a threshold for each seat; 1/150th is approximately 0.67% of the valid votes. Each party's number of votes is divided by this threshold, and rounded down to the nearest whole number, to give an initial number of seats equal to the number of times the threshold was reached. Any party that received fewer votes than the threshold fails to gain representation in the House of Representatives. After the initial seats are allocated, the remainder seats are allocated among the parties that received at least one seat, using the D'Hondt method of largest averages. This system slightly favours the larger parties. Since parties that received fewer votes than required to obtain one whole seat are not eligible for remainder seats, there is a de facto election threshold of 0.67%. This threshold is one of the lowest for national parliaments in the world, and there are usually multiple parties winning seats with 2% or less of the vote.

Once the number of seats allocated to each party is known, they are usually allocated to candidates in the order that they appear on the party's list. (Hence, before the elections, the candidates near the top may be described as in an electable position, depending on the number of seats that the party is likely to obtain.) At this stage, however, the preference votes are also taken into account. Any candidate receiving more than one quarter of the threshold on personal preference votes, is considered elected in their own right, leapfrogging candidates higher on the list.

## Composition

The composition of the House of Representatives changes every election.