Talk:Elections to the European Parliament/Archive 1

Overhaul of Constuency & Election pages

We have loads of national election pages that aren't yet created, and probably won't be for ages, and we are also missing loads of constituency pages. I propose we merge the two areas. We list national results (as it is usually just a table of results) on the constituency page. I have created one for the Netherlands as an example Netherlands (European Constituency). A page would be created for each constituency and election information moved onto them. The links in the nav box would be directed to the relevant sub-section unless a different decision is made on its layout. Approve? - J Logan ^t: 18:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I really like that idea. I just have one question: Do you have a plan for how to handle those nations that are split into multiple constituencies, such as the UK? One page per nation and one per subnational constituency? Hemmingsen 15:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

That is a detail I've been thinking about (hence using a national constituency as the proposal). Basicaly, it would be sub-national, as those are constituencies as the others are - there are already pages for most of them. However there is the problem of when these were changed. I do not know about the others but the UK used to have a lot more under FPTP, and it was changed to the present large constituencies in 1999 I think. In that case there might be a national page for historical constituencies, or all the cosntituencies that fell inside the current ones. I will discuss that with editors working on the existing pages but first I'd deal with the national ones. - J Logan ^t: 18:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. Including historical constituencies on the article for the current would probably be the best choice for Denmark, even though Greenland isn't actually part of the current constituency: it was a separate one back in 1979, but only for that one election and it's unlikely that we'll have much material on it any time soon other than a table of results. Hemmingsen 19:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I vehemently disapprove of such a merger. Single elections are viable subjects for wikipedia articles. Another problem is that if we merge all results for one constituency to one page this will make navigation accross countries for different years more difficult (from Netherlands 1979 to France 1979 for instance). There is no added value in merging allready existing pages. C mon 20:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I propose considering that this is how most constituency articles work. You have a constituency then the history of the results within that article. We are talking about the European elections, those pages are established, and there are not often individual pages for elections in each constituency. Further more navigation between France 79 and Netherlands 79 isn't that fab right now anyway, it is all done by the bottom nav box and hence hasn't actually changed much. - J Logan ^t: 21:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

- S. Solberg J. 11:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic, now that's what I'm talking about. See how much more understandable it gets? Thanks Solberg! - J Logan ^t: 15:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm on an enforced wikibreak and so cannot stop long. I just wish to say that I support this proposal as it would make things a heck of a lot simpler - I note that the Netherlands has already been done to this standard and it looks a lot cleaner. But as already mentioned, you will have problems with the subnational constituencies and with constituencies that have changed. However, a solution presents itself, since Template:European Parliament constituencies has already solved this problem. If you merge your proposed navbox with that navbox, then you get something like this:

On a separate issue, I need to make two pleas:

• 1) If you're going to put election results tables in you must source them - i.e. link to an external page with those exact numbers in, or link to an external page with the original numbers and show your working. Any tables not so sourced will be original research and eventually be deleted. It's not an optional extra, it has to be done.
• 2) I note in many European Election articles a confusion between an European party and an European Group - EPP-ED, Greens-EFA and the PES group (a.k.a the "Socialist Group in the European Parliament") are groups, EFA, EPP and the PES party are parties. Please, please do not label a party as a group, or vice versa, because - to be frank - it's driving me crazy.

Regards, Anameofmyveryown 18:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Seconded your points on parties/groups. On sourcing tables, right now I am just merging them but once that is done I will go over them and give some citiations while I am filling in the gaps.

On the constituency lists, that was my point with the only problem being historical ones, but I reckon we could work around that once we get the others done. - J Logan ^t: 19:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for that, I appreciate the time & effort it takes. Thinking aloud for a second, User:Ssolbergj's navbox above can be made to work if (say) the UK link took you to a page called "United Kingdom European Parliament constituencies" - note the plural - which would then say something along the lines of "...Prior to 1999?, constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales were elected using FPTP. During this period, the constituencies were (then link to the constituencies or groups of them, since I don't think you'll be able to do all of them - there were about 80!) Since 1999, Scotland and Wales became constituencies in their own right, and England was split into 9 constituencies elected using (i think) closed lists and D'Hondt. Since that time, the constituencies have been (then link to the new constituencies). Northern Ireland (link to constituency) has constituted a single constituency using STV since European Parliament elections began there in 1979..." This intermediate page structure could be used for other nations who've had significant changes to their constituencies (e.g. Italy), and could be used for cases like West Germany becoming Germany, the Greenland situation, future expansion, and so on. I think this thinking aloud matches the structure you lay out above...
On a serious point, the general layout of the EP election pages has caused me some concern for a while: the layout and table structures for each constituency and election are wildly different, and there is little consistency. I understand User:C mon's concern, but if your proposal is carried out, then there should be a lot more consistency (c.f. the Netherlands article) and on that basis alone, I would support your proposal. Anameofmyveryown 20:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

That's another point actually, as I'm going through with the new info I'll try to make sure the tables follow the same outline on all the pages (if people want to propose swish ideas on that point please do before I start :) ). - J Logan ^t: 10:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, I would like all the tables to be of the same format, although that's wildly unrealistic. However, I don't think it's unrealistic that all the tables for a given constituency should be of the same/similar format. I note that you are using wikitables for the Netherlands constituency. I think you have made the right decision there: wikitables are quick and require no/little formatting information, so you can produce them quickly. I further note that there will be hundreds of tables (10ish elections, over 50 constituencies...do the math) so you will be best advised to avoid anybody's requests for swish ideas. In short, do the other constituencies in exactly the same way as you did the Netherlands, and you should be OK. Good luck, Anameofmyveryown 22:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, well I'll just keep merging them for now, most have the same format across their election pages. I'm going to be doing them slowly though so people have a chance to see whats going on and comment here. (So far, Netherlands (European constituency), Denmark (European constituency) and Greece (European constituency)). - J Logan ^t: 10:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but it should be "European Parliament constituency", not "European constituency"! —Nightstallion 21:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that a bit long winded. I mean there are no others. - J Logan ^t: 08:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

No, it isn't, especially since "European constituency" is basically meaningless... —Nightstallion 19:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll go with it. - J Logan ^t: 10:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Now merged Luxembourg (European Parliament constituency). - J Logan ^t: 11:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Luxembourg

I really vehemently disagree with this merger. I have three reasons for doing so:

1. The discussion is not finished on the Talk:Elections in the European Union. There is no consensus there, my issues are not addressed
2. The merger leads to loss of valuable data (in this case which MEP were elected) and inhibits the addition of new information about this election: just look at the introduction of European Parliament election, 2004 (United Kingdom) to see what usefull information one could add (polls, issues, etc.)
3. The merging this now only leads to cloggery and complication as f.i. the {{European Union elections}} still thinks these articles exists.

Therefore I have reverted the edits. In a compromising mood, I do think that both the constituency pages, like Luxembourg (European Parliament constituency) and the individual election pages can exist side by side, catering to different needs of different readers, offering overview and more specific information. C mon 12:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

1. There is support but in ackoelwegemnt I am moving slowly so we can sort through these issues and get more voices to comment, if we were just discussing here nobody would hear.

2. No data was lost, look at what I actualy did and you will see all the data was moved. On the UK, point taken. But a large amount of data can still be put into the subjection. Where there is a lot of data however, such pages can be the exception rather than the rule. Right now we are having a system that means we need a whole page for a 1979 election in Luxembourg we know next to nothing about.

3. No, I have redirected the links as a temp measure so it does not think they exist (and half of them didn't before) and if you read the above discussion you will see we are talking about alternatives which will display the new changes and be a lot simpler.

Hence, in my compromising mood we merge pages with little information (such as Lux) but still have individual pages for larger elections. This would be the case in any article system where you have an overview and where there is a lot of detail, it has its own page. - J Logan ^t: 13:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

First off support is not consensus!!

Moverover the information which was lost for European Parliament election, 1999 (Luxembourg) was the list of MEPs elected. Very relevant information BTW. Can you argue what is undesirable about co-existence? Are there any arguments to merge, instead of keep them side by side (which is most reader-friendly, inducive to adding more information and often this articles are as good as national election-pages!!).

I think we could better concentrate our time on writing better individual election article than discussing this endlessly here!

C mon 16:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I am well aware it is not a consensus, but neither is there any more support for keeping. I am trying to draw more interests out through this.

It was not lost if you read the article. The list is still there. Arguments have already been through above which you have not responed to. It is your opinion that it is reader-friendly, from another point of view it creates loads of unncessary stubs a user has to navigate through to compare. This is making the information more accessable and clear. Side-by-side would duplicate information.

Finally, you cannot dismiss this on that basis, for a start these have seen very little improvement regardless and improving structure of the articles is improving them. - J Logan ^t: 19:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

User:C mon, to address your concerns as follows:

• "Can you argue what is undesirable about co-existence?" - Coexistence is a good thing for humans, but a bad thing for data <grin>. Keeping the same information (election tables, in this case) in more than one place is asking for trouble, as vandalism and inconsistently applied good-faith edits will inevitably lead to the tables going out-of-synch.
• "Are there any arguments to merge?" Yes, there are as follows:

• 1) The data-duplication argument (see above) is one.
• 2) Another is that the merging produces a more consistent style.
• 3) The current situation (one page per election per nation-state) requires an unnecessarily large number of pages, most of them stubs.
• 4) The current situation has resulted in a forest of redlinks for some time now.
• 5) In short, the current situation is unwieldy, untidy and difficult to maintain.

• You state that the current situation is "most reader-friendly". I must respectfully disagree. I have tried to navigate my way through it and found it overcomplicated and unwieldy.
• You further state that the current situation is "inducive to adding more information". Again, I must respectfully disagree. Those red links have been there for some time and were unlikely to be filled out in the short (or even medium) term.
• You further state that "The merger leads to loss of valuable data". As has been pointed out, this is untrue.
• You further state that "The merging this now only leads to cloggery and complication as f.i. the {{European Union elections}} still thinks these articles exists". Again, as has been pointed out, this is untrue.
• Speaking seriously, I genuinely recommend that you let User:JLogan proceed without reversion. I believe that once you have seen the finished product, you will acknowledge that it is much cleaner and no info has been lost. I further believe that your concerns (no doubt strongly and genuinely held) will, by the end, be proved to be groundless. This applies particularly to the subdivided constituencies (UK, Belgium, Italy, France). In short, let User:JLogan get on with it, and everything *will* be OK. Kind regards, Anameofmyveryown 23:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC).

Your argument fails for many reasons:

1. Currently the tables used in the Luxembourg articles are templates. What's wrong with representing them two times. To alter the data you have to alter the template. If the template is altered it is altered on both pages. Consider we also represent information about the latest election of many countries on their "general" election page (like Elections in the Netherlands), on their general politics page (like Politics in the Netherlands) and often on their parties page (like Political parties in the Netherlands. So data-duplication is done and it is in my view preferable because it allows readers of wikipedia to find data via multiple ways.
2. Consistency can also be achieved by writing all individual elections articles. Since there is no way that the UK pages will be redirected to this (they are viable pages). Your proposal will lead to more inconsistency.
3. There is nothing wrong with creating stubs. There is nothing wrong with having a lot of small pages. There is no consensus on wikipedia on that. (there is a whole unfinished debate about inclusionism vs. deletionism).
4. The red link issue is ridiculous, because I minded the French redlinks I wrote the French articles in just a few days, I am willing to put the work into it, to make all the old redlinks as real articles as the French ones (table+short description).
5. The deletion of the 1999 Luxembourg article led to loss of data: the list of elected MEPs. So you both are blatantly wrong.

Speaking seriously: I respectfully ask you to, before we have consensus, not to redirect existing pages to your proposed system. And if you feel you have to to use the appropriate way: put those articles up for deletion. That is what you are currently doing: deleting pages, please use the official way to do that. C mon 17:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

1 What's wrong with once? Why do we need it twice in a full page and a stub?

2 It is hardly bad to have a set of articles then, where there are details, have an enlarged page. That is what the "main article" and "see also" lines come in.

3 You have loads of stubs it is harder to find information than if it presented together.

4 Fair enough if you want to go and write every article, but how many links are we going to have in the nav box regardless, just look at it its a mess.

5 Okay then, how much do you want to bet the MEPs are not there? Seriously, 50 euro? Read it.

It is not deleting pages, it is merging. There is a difference. One removes content, the other combines it. Nothign wrong, you put data together it is easier to compare and analyse it. - J Logan ^t: 18:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

My view was requested on this issue. Frankly, I'm fine with either solution; having the info centralised has some merits, though. I've got no strong convictions on this, though, and could live with it either way. —Nightstallion 14:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

regarding 5) I humbly have to say: you are right the information is there. But it I read past it multiple times. I think this sustains my point that centralizing information is not user friendly, what was a spacious separate section in the article now is two lines which easily go unnoticed. C mon 20:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I arrive too late, but even I disapprove these merges per C mon. --Checco 01:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough then. Re MEPs I had intended to develop that into a table for each election but was waiting till I had the data for all of them. I'll be fine with coexistence so long as the tables are all changed to templates to avoid clashes and the main articles are developed further than just left as stubs or non-existant. I'll make sure the constituency articles are linked into the full election articles as I'm doing them. Further more I think the navbox should be looked at as right now it is a bit of a mess. There are way too many links and a new system could be found to better link these articles. - J Logan ^t: 11:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I can certainly live with that and will spend time expanding articles and templating. C mon 19:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Good compromise. --Checco 19:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for my tardy reply: I was writing an article (yes, I am cognizant of the irony). If all the election results with sources are created (and C mon has stated above that he will do so), and the tables are templated to allow multiple usage, then I would have no problem with the compromise outlined above. As I have also stated above, please try to develop a coherent style for the tables, since the present approach is chaotic. Regards, Anameofmyveryown 14:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to chime in: I think that this solution (keeping both the constituency and the election pages) is the best solution, and I'd join ANOMVO's call for a common style to the templates. —Nightstallion 21:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

FYI: I have created all constituency articles except for Romania (will do that after their election) and templated all data that was available as it was. So, how are the election articles coming? I was going to go through with sources and common styles but I think I need a break from all that for a while, I have gained a new pet hate: Spanish names. Is it so hard just to have one first name and one last name and stick to it? I mean how many different formulations can they use! I had to go through every single Spanish MEP articles to find the correct names to link to, lord that too a while. I am not updating that article after 09 I can tell you! Speaking of that, we better have a strategy for mass mobilisation during the next election, we will need a lot of help. - J Logan ^t: 19:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Name

The Netherlands is not a constituency of the European Parliament, as no such thing exists at this level. MEP are elected from Member States, which may or may not decide to divvy up this process into constituency elections. Intangible2.0 00:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Em, if a member is elected there when it is a constituency, the whole country forms one. You have voters divided off into a specific area and they as an electorate vote for a set number of MEPs to represent that area. That is a constituency. Wikipedia's own article: "group or area from which voters in an election are drawn." It is nothing new that a constituency may coincide with other administrative boundaries. In the UK you don't have people elected from "district councils, not constituencies" as that would imply the election is going via the other administrative structure whereas it is in fact direct. - J Logan ^t: 07:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you cite EU law that states that Member States form a constituency, in EP elections? Intangible2.0 10:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I may be wrong here, but your point feels like a straw man argument: the case for referring to a member state as an "European Parliament constituency" revolves not around EU law specifically referring to them as such, but from the fact that a defined area used to elect representatives can be called a "constituency". However, making the effort to address your concerns, I note that European Parliament Factsheet 1.3.4, section "Arrangements Subject To National Provisions", subsection B "Constituency boundaries", states that "...Since the 2002 Council Decision, a number of the old Member States have amended or are amending national laws. France has abandoned the use of a single electoral constituency and has established eight large regional constituencies: Northwest, West, East, Southwest, Southeast, Massif Central, Île-de-France and Overseas..." (my bold, see link here for the original). Regards, Anameofmyveryown 11:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well from the 1976 EU election act [1]: "In accordance with its specific national situation, each Member State may establish constituencies for elections to the European Parliament or subdivide its electoral area in a different manner, without generally affecting the proportional nature of the voting system." So it is up to Member States to decide. One cannot talk in general terms. Intangible2.0 12:58, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It is a way of describing the country's function in the EP electoral process, and in that process they function as a constituency. It's that simple. —Nightstallion 14:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

If the Member State forms one electoral constituency, it is still a Member State constituency, not a European Parliament constituency. MEPs are elected in Member States, not in Europe. Intangible2.0 19:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't make any sense. Any member is elected in the constituency, but it is to something that defines the point of the constituency. They are elected to they European Parliament, hence making the constituency of the Parliament. They are not elected for any national structure. What you're suggesting is like having "Bristol West (Bristol West Constituency)" simply because that's where they're elected, rather than where they're going. - J Logan ^t: 08:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. I see nothing wrong with the current titles. —Nightstallion 21:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Navbox

Okay, returning to the navbox issue. I've looked through and tried different ways of presenting that data but it just doesn't seem to work in way that is simple to understand - esp. if you have just come across it. Hence what I propose is firstly, just having a simple lower navbox like this between the main election pages and for the subnational system we have a side bar that will list the other elections for that state/constituency and for that year. For example if you were on France 2004 election, the side bar would display links to all other French elections and all other national elections in 2004. Hence you have a simple display to everything you would want to compare from that article without having a massive clutter of links at the bottom. I have already created a parent page here to se don't loose the general grid system (well the page is more of a grid than the navbox which was hard to read). Thoughts? - J Logan ^t: 15:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I quite like the current navbox... —Nightstallion 12:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Euro elections in Austria & Finland 1995... Er, just one problem...

As some of you may know, I'm plowing thru the European Parliament election articles trying to harmonize them. Although I've been concentrating on the EU-wide elections, I have been giving some thought to the by-election articles (81, 87, 95, 07) with the intent of dealing with them sometime in '08. Whilst doing so, I happened along the European Parliament election, 1995 article, which states that "...The 1995 European parliamentary elections were held in Austria, Finland and Sweden..." Just one problem: the Sweden election was held in 1995, 'tis true,[2] but the Austria and Finland elections were (according to these sources: [3][4] [5][6]) held in 1996. Can anybody confirm/deny this and, if true, what is the best way to resolve this? Kind regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 02:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I came across this problem when doing the history but sure I found something giving the exact election dates in 1995, might have been the history timeline on Europa. But if there are others sources contradicting then perhaps a change. However I was thinking that as they are all on different dates, why do we even have overarching pages for them? It seems particularly pointless for Greece's.- J Logan ^t: 09:39, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

aaargh...it's getting worse. Here's the official results for the Constituency of the Province of Vienna 1996 Elections to the European Parliament [7] I'm going to have to chase this up in 2008. Ouch! Anameofmyveryown (talk) 01:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Stuff

1: Poland. According to [8] and [9], Poland was divided into 13 constituencies in the 2004 elections. Anybody mind if I update Template:European Parliament constituencies and European Parliament constituency accordingly? Incidentally, the sentence "... In Poland they may do so only at a constituency level, but seats are allocated nationally..." in the latter article is i think incorrect: see [10] for what happens actually.

2: In a similar vein, anybody mind if I rename Template:European Parliament constituencies to Template:European Parliament constituencies 2004-2009, precursive to creating similar templates for 1999-2004, 1994-1999, 1989-1994, 1984-1989 and 1979-1984? There have been sufficient changes in each term to justify it,and it'll give me a framework to deal with the old >70 UK FPTP constituencies.

3: I'm fairly sure the Austria & Finland elections were held in 96, not 95 (see [11], [12],[13],[14],[15],[16]). Given that and the fact that the by-election articles will cover at most two member states, anybody mind if I delete the European Parliament election, 1987, European Parliament election, 1981, European Parliament election, 1995, and European Parliament election, 2007 articles? (not the equivalent member-state election articles!) They're never going to be anything other than stubs/linkfarms.

4: Finland: the European_Parliament_constituency says that "...In Finland they may do so either at electoral district or national level...", and that is what the EuroParl factsheet says. However the EuroParl election website is at pains to point out that "...the whole country forms a single constituency. Candidates stand at national level and are counted on a national basis..." (see [17]). Given contradictory sources, anybody mind if I delete the "...In Finland they may do so either at electoral district or national level..." sentence? Or is it, in fact, true?

5: The Eniskhimeni Analogiki method. EuroParl factsheets say this is the method Greece uses for seat allocation. The EuroParl election website [18] doesn't directly contradict it. But I do not know what "Eniskhimeni Analogiki" means, and a Google search throws up so few references it's nearly a Googlewhack. Is there any person who knows what "Eniskhimeni Analogiki" is?

Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 04:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

1&2: Didn't expect that, yes of course I quite agree. At some point I'll get back to the constituency articles to make the sub-national like the national so I think maybe a new system needs to be worked out?

3:Absolutely, the over arching ones are a waste of space. Don't forget to move the 1981 page to a Greek particular, as we don't have one, rather than wipe it. Do you think we should use a different naming convention for byelections though? Aside from European Parliament election, 1994 (Austria) now we don't have the overarching ones?

4:Agree, looks like a single constituency to me.

5:No clue, maybe if there is a Greek around here they might know, perhaps a note on their Wikiproject's EU page?

- J Logan ^t: 13:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

1,4 and 5 are done. The official name of the Poland constituencies is debatable. As per normal en:wikipedia practice, the English translations of the European Parliament descriptions has been used (see [19]). However, these are not the names used by pl:wikipedia, which uses the names of the voivodeship capital cities instead (see [20]). As I can't find an official source for the latter stance, I have used the former since I do have a source for that. However, the reason why I can't find an official source for the latter is simple: I can't speak Polish, and Google doesn't do Polish translations. So I'm prepared to be contradicted on the names. I'll do the rest over the coming days, regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 03:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe .pl uses an informal term for them? One thing I don't get is how can they have constituencies of 1 when the minimum is three to maintain proportionality?- J Logan ^t: 09:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

See below for answers: Anameofmyveryown (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

2 done Y Anameofmyveryown (talk) 02:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Poland electoral procedure for European Parliament elections

The trick is to realise that in Poland, the number of seats in a constituency isn't decided until after the election. (source: [21])

I think (I can't swear to it) that the sequence of events goes something like this. (source: this document [22] from this page [23] on this website [24])

1) Parties register lists in as many or as few constituencies as they like.
2) Voters vote in a given constituency for the lists registered in that constituency.
3) The Poland National Election Commission totals up all the votes nationally.
4) Lists that didn't reach 5% of the total national vote are discarded.
5) Each list that did make it is given (D'Hondt method) a number of seats ("mandates") depending on their share of the national vote. The total number of mandates is 54.
6) Each constituency is given (Hare-Niemayer method) a number of seats depending on the number of people who voted in that constituency. The total number of seats is 54.
7) Lists are matched to seats depending on the number of people in each constituency that voted for that list.
8) Members from those lists are assigned to those seats depending on the number of votes they personally had.

It's quite complicated, but it has these advantages.

A) People stand for constituencies B) Voters vote for people in constituencies. C) Everybody who gets a seat will represent a party who reached the 5% threshold nationwide. D) The number of seats in a constituency depends on the number of people who voted in it. E) The constituency vote for each person is known. F) It's possible to build an election table for each constituency (yay!).

Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Poland European Parliament constituency names

As for the question of what the constituencies are called, the best I can come up with is this:

Polish National Election Commission names/descriptions

(source: this document [25] from this page [26] on this website [27])

The full official Polish names and descriptions (it's difficult to separate the two) for the constituencies are as follows:

1) Okręg wyborczy nr 1, obejmujący obszar województwa pomorskiego.
2) Okręg wyborczy nr 2, obejmujący obszar województwa kujawsko-pomorskiego.
3) Okręg wyborczy nr 3, obejmujący obszar województwa podlaskiego i województwa warmińsko-mazurskiego.
4) Okręg wyborczy nr 4, obejmujący obszar części województwa mazowieckiego: m. st. Warszawy oraz powiatów: grodziskiego, legionowskiego, nowodworskiego, otwockiego, piaseczyńskiego, pruszkowskiego, warszawskiego zachodniego i wołomińskiego.
5) Okręg wyborczy nr 5, obejmujący obszar części województwa mazowieckiego: powiatów: ciechanowskiego, gostynińskiego, mławskiego, płockiego, płońskiego, przasnyskiego, sierpeckiego, sochaczewskiego, żuromińskiego, żyrardowskiego, białobrzeskiego, grójeckiego, kozienickiego, lipskiego, przysuskiego, radomskiego, szydłowieckiego, zwoleńskiego, garwolińskiego, łosickiego, makowskiego, mińskiego, ostrołęckiego, ostrowskiego, pułtuskiego, siedleckiego, sokołowskiego, węgrowskiego, wyszkowskiego oraz miast na prawach powiatu - Płock, Radom, Ostrołęka i Siedlce.
6) Okręg wyborczy nr 6, obejmujący obszar województwa łódzkiego.
7) Okręg wyborczy nr 7, obejmujący obszar województwa wielkopolskiego.
8) Okręg wyborczy nr 8, obejmujący obszar województwa lubelskiego.
9) Okręg wyborczy nr 9, obejmujący obszar województwa podkarpackiego.
10) Okręg wyborczy nr 10, obejmujący obszar województwa małopolskiego i województwa świętokrzyskiego.
11) Okręg wyborczy nr 11, obejmujący obszar województwa śląskiego.
12) Okręg wyborczy nr 12, obejmujący obszar województwa dolnośląskiego i województwa opolskiego.
13) Okręg wyborczy nr 13, obejmujący obszar województwa lubuskiego i województwa zachodniopomorskiego.

European Parliament Electoral Website names/descriptions

(source: [28]

The European Parliament Electoral Website translates the above word-for-word, which gives us this:

1) Constituency 1 Pomorskie Voivodship
2) Constituency 2 Kujawsko -pomorskie Voivodship
3) Constituency 3 Podlaskie and Warminsko- Mazurskie Voivodship
4) Constituency 4 City of Warsaw and part of the Mazowieckie Voivodship (powiats: grodziski, legionowski, nowodworski, otwocki, piaseczynski, pruszkowski, warszawski zachodni i wolominski)
5) Constituency 5 The remaining part of the Mazowieckie Voivodship (powiats: ciechanowski, gostyninski, mlawski, plocki, plonski, przasnyski, sierpacki, sochaczewski, zurominski, zyrardowski, bialobrzeski, grójecki, kozienicki, lipski, przysuski, radomski, szydlowiecki, zwolenski, garwolinski, losicki, makowski, minski, ostrolecki, ostrowski, pultuski, siedlecki, sokolowski, wegrowski, wyszkowski and the cities of Plock, Radom, Ostroleka and Siedlce)
6) Constituency 6 Lódzkie Voivodship
7) Constituency 7 Wielkopolskie Voivodship
8) Constituency 8 Lubelskie Voivodship
9) Constituency 9 Podkarpackie Voivodship
10) Constituency 10 Malopolskie and Swietokrzyskie Voivodship
11) Constituency 11 Slaskie Voivodship
12) Constituency 12 Dolnoslaskie and Opolskie Voivodship
13) Constituency 13 Lubuskie and Zachodniopomorskie Voivodship

Resultant en.wikipedia names

After translating the Polish names into their English equivalents (which is normal en.wikipedia practise for EuroParl constituiencies, see France & Italy for proof), that gives us this:

1) Pomeranian
2) Kuyavian-Pomeranian
3) Podlachian and Warmian-Masurian
4) Warsaw
5) Masovian
6) Łódź
7) Greater Poland
8) Lublin
9) Subcarpathian
10) Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie
11) Silesian
12) Lower Silesian and Opole
13) Lubusz and West Pomeranian

pl.wikipedia names

pl.wikipedia names for the constituencies are inconsistent. One set of articles (source: [29] uses the following names for the constituencies:

1) Okręg wyborczy Gdańsk
2) Okręg wyborczy Bydgoszcz
3) Okręg wyborczy Olsztyn
4) Okręg wyborczy Warszawa
5) Okręg wyborczy Warszawa II
6) Okręg wyborczy Łódź
7) Okręg wyborczy Poznań
8) Okręg wyborczy Lublin
9) Okręg wyborczy Rzeszów
10) Okręg wyborczy Kraków
11) Okręg wyborczy Katowice
12) Okręg wyborczy Wrocław
13) Okręg wyborczy Gorzów Wielkopolski

I think they're either following the convention of naming constituencies after their capital cities (much as a Cold War drama will use "Washington" and "Moscow" as shorthand for "United States of America" and "Soviet Union"), or they're adopting the name of the nearest Polish national parliament constituency (which is disputable, since they don't have the same borders: see [30])

However, the pl.wikipedia constituency infoboxes ([31]) uses different names for the constituencies (see [32]), and the two don't match up.

Given the above, I think I'll be forgiven for using the Pomeranian, Kuyavian-Pomeranian,... Lower Silesian and Opole, Lubusz and West Pomeranian names for the constituencies, since I can source it in English and Polish.

regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)