Ley de lemas

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The ley de lemas is a variant of open list proportional representation, which is, or has been, used in elections in Argentina, Uruguay, and Honduras, and works as follows:

• Each political party (or coalition, if permitted) is formally termed a lema (from a Spanish word meaning motto).
• Each lema might have several sublemas (candidates or lists of candidates). The actual composition of these sublemas can vary: it can be simply a pair of candidates (for election to the posts of governor and vice-governor, for example), or an ordered list of candidates to fill the seats in a legislative body.
• Each party can present several sublemas to the main election.
• The winning party is the one which receives the most votes after the votes won by each of its sublemas have been added together. Within this party, the winning sublema is the one which, individually, won the most votes. Once the number of votes received by each lema and sublema has been determined, seats or posts are allocated to each proportionally.