§ Section 38(untitled)

(1) The members of the Saeima
elected in constituencies shall be determined by the Central
Election Commission. The lists of candidates bearing the same
name which have received less than five per cent of the total
number of votes cast in the entire Latvia, regardless of the
number of constituencies for which these lists of candidates have
been nominated, shall be excluded from the distribution of seats
in the Saeima. The number of valid ballot envelopes shall
be deemed to be the total number of votes cast (the total number
of voters participating in the election).
(2) In order to distribute the number of seats in the
Saeima between the other lists of candidates nominated in
the constituency, the following procedures shall be applied:
1) the number of valid ballot papers cast for each list of
candidates shall be determined in each constituency;
2) the number of ballot papers cast for each list of
candidates shall be then sequentially divided by 1, 3, 5, 7 and
so on until the number of divisions is the same as the number of
candidates nominated in the list of candidates;
3) all the acquired divisions regarding all the lists of
candidates of one constituency shall be numbered in common
descending order;
4) seats of the members of the Saeima shall
sequentially be received by those lists of candidates of the
constituency which conform to the largest divisions. If the
division the sequence number of which is equal to the number of
the members of the Saeima to be elected from the
constituency is equal to one or several subsequent divisions, a
seat of the member of the Saeima shall be received by the
list of candidates which has acquired more votes. If such lists
of candidates have been registered only in one constituency, a
seat of the member of the Saeima shall be received by the
list of candidates that has been registered first.
[26 March 1998; 27 May 1998]