A brief overview of the Greenlandic electoral system and Qinersineq.gl

Qinersineq.gl is used to collect voting results from polling places across Greenland. The actual voting process is still conducted manually with paper ballots and conventional ballot boxes. Information on the number of votes tallied by each polling place is made public as soon as the polling data is entered into the electoral system by local municipal officials. The electoral system can be used for parliamentary elections, in which the goal is to select a number of candidates, and for national referendums, where the aim is to gauge voters' opinions on a specific topic.

Parliamentary elections

During elections the country is divided into a number of constituencies (one district for elections to the Greenlandic parliament, Inatsisartut, a number of districts to elect Greenland's representatives to the Danish parliament, and five districts for municipal elections), and a number of party candidates and independent candidates run in each district. Greenland's political parties are generally represented by candidates in every district, but this is not always the case. For example, some parties do not field candidates in every municipality during municipal elections. A candidate can belong to a political party or run as an independent candidate.

Voters have the right to cast ballots in the districts in which they reside on a given date, and this can vary slightly for different types of elections. There may be special rules for persons with temporary residence. Each voter may cast one ballot either for a party, a candidate from a party, or an independent candidate. Lists of registered voters are available at every polling place and used by election officials to verify that each eligible voter casts only one ballot. When the election has been completed and the votes have been counted, the results are entered into Qinersineq.gl. The electoral system is publicly accessible, so the election results are shown in real time as they are entered.

Since the votes for candidates are entered for each party one at a time, this can produce relatively large fluctuations in the results shown for each polling place as each batch is entered for the individual parties. The final results for the individual polling places are only shown after all of the votes have been entered. It is therefore important to determine the extent to which the ballots cast at a specific polling place have been certified as final or polling data is still being entered. Qinersineq.gl can present summaries of the election results at one or more polling places. Results are displayed either in detail or summarized by parties and independent candidates.

• 'Number of registered voters' indicates the number of voters on the electoral register - i.e. how many persons are eligible to vote.
• 'Votes counted' indicates how many ballots have been cast in the ballot boxes.
• 'Blank' indicates the number of blank votes in the ballot boxes, i.e. ballots on which nothing has been written.
• 'Invalid' indicates the number of ballots in the ballot boxes on which something has been written, but it cannot with certainty be determined how the voter has voted, including the ballots that have presumably not been legally produced.
• 'Valid votes in total' is the sum total of the counted ballots minus the 'blank' and 'invalid' ballots.
• 'Turnout' is calculated by taking the number of 'votes counted' and expressing this as a percentage of the 'number of registered voters'.
• The percentages of the votes received by the parties and the candidates are calculated as the number of votes for the party or the candidate in relation to the total number of 'votes counted''.

Allocation of seats

The so-called D'Hondt method is used to allocate seats. The formal allocation is completed manually after all of the votes have been tallied and certified. The concrete allocation of seats and substitutes for elected representatives is entered into Qinersineq.gl. This makes the results immediately available to the public.

National referendums

Referendums are held to determine the electorate's opinion on a specific topic or proposal. The entire country serves as a single voting district during national referendums. Voting percentages are calculated in the same manner as for parliamentary elections. Qinersineq.gl has not yet been used for a national referendum and the system's publicly accessible results pages have thus not been prepared to display referendum results.

Ownership and rights

Qinersineq.gl is owned by the Greenland Government Authorities, Ministry of Municipalities, Settlements, Outlying Districts, Infrastructure and Housing, Interior Division.

The system was developed and is operated by KIMIK iT.

This text was last updated in April 2018.