Talk:2020 Serbian local elections

General discussion on templates for local elections

Hello everyone,

I've recently added several Serbian local election results to Wikipedia. Up until now, I haven't been using the "Election results" template, even though I know it looks better and is more user-friendly with the information it provides.

There are two reasons why I haven't used the template until now. The first is that I prefer to include the full names of the electoral lists in the results, and until recently I wasn't sure how to do this without losing the colour-coding for lists that don't begin with the main party's name. I've now developed a simple-but-effective workaround (visible here), and this point isn't an issue any more.

The other point is one that I'm still grappling with, though.

The electoral threshold in Serbian local elections (and parliamentary elections, and provincial elections) is three per cent of the *total* vote, not three per cent of the *valid* vote. At the moment, the "Election results" template is only used to list the percentages of valid votes. I'll acknowledge that this is the same approach that the Serbian government uses in its official returns. The problem is that these aren't the percentages that count.

Usually, the distinction between the "valid" and "total" percentages doesn't make a huge difference to the overall outcome. Occasionally, it does. The most notable example I'm aware of is from the 2012 Serbian local elections in Belgrade, where the Liberal Democratic Party received 5.04% of the valid votes but only 4.82% of the total votes, and so did not win any seats in the city assembly. (For clarity, the electoral threshold used to be five per cent. It was lowered to three per cent in 2020.) There are some other examples as well.

If we only list the percentages of valid votes, we're not really making it clear to readers why, for instance, the LDP didn't win any seats in Belgrade in 2012.

I've tried to square the circle by including both percentages in my results listings. You can't do this with the "Election results" template.

I've also tried including the invalid votes in the "top" section of the "Election results" template, so that the percentages reflect the number of total votes (e.g., in this edit). Another editor has disagreed with this approach. Rather than getting into an edit war, I've decided to raise the issue here.

My questions:

• Do other editors think the templates should list the percentages of valid votes or the percentages of all votes for each electoral list?
• If the former, is there any other way to indicate the percentages of all votes using the "Election results" template?

I know this is a minor point compared with other things happening in Serbian politics at present, but it still makes something of a difference in the way Wikipedia reports this information. Feedback is welcome. CJCurrie (talk) 23:02, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

While I was working on 2021 Serbian local elections, I have used the template and did not put the "official ballot names", simply because I did not want the templates to get really wide. It's easier for readers to instead see who participated on what list, and that's it.

In my opinion, I would recommend switching to the template. The "Votes" column can show how many valid votes did a list get, while invalid votes are grouped together down below. Vacant0 (talk) 12:01, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I think the approach I used on the 2013 pages squares the circle as regards the ballot names -- it provides "at a glance" information with the colour coding and abbreviations, and it provides the full information for those who are interested.

I could compromise on the vote percentages, though I'm hopeful we can still clarify why certain lists seemingly crossed the threshold but did not end up winning any seats. CJCurrie (talk) 02:07, 15 February 2022 (UTC)