BAGHDAD — Recent amendments made to the provincial and district council elections law have sparked a wave of criticism in Iraq as the national parliament adopted a change in the Sainte-Lague voting system formula that was rejected by small blocs and parties, as well as by elites, human rights organizations and civil society organizations.

Parliament voted July 22 to amend the provincial elections law and adopt a first electoral divisor of 1.9 under the Sainte-Lague proportional representation seat-allocation system, compared with 1.7 in the 2018 elections for the national parliament. The higher divisor will give large electoral blocs a greater advantage over smaller blocs in terms of winning seats in local parliaments. 

The provincial elections are scheduled for April 2020.

The Sainte-Lague system is a mathematical method of allocating parliamentary seats. Votes received by each bloc are divided by a denominator that starts with 1 or above but lower than 2. When votes are divided by a smaller initial number, small lists have better chances of winning seats. The higher the electoral denominator, the fewer the chances for smaller lists and the greater the opportunities for big lists. Under the Sainte-Lague system, vote totals are also divided by succeeding odd numbers — 3, 5, 7 and upward — as necessary to determine seat allocations. For example, if a bloc's vote total divided by 7 was greater than another bloc's vote total divided by 1.9, the first bloc would receive four seats before the other bloc could even receive one seat.