Election threshold

In party-list proportional representation systems, an election threshold is a clause that stipulates that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or within a particular district, to get any seats in the parliament. The effect of the threshold is to eliminate small parties, or force them into coalitions. Many people hold that this makes an election system more stable.

In Germany's Bundestag (elected through the Additional member system), this threshold is 5% (or 3 constituency seats), while it's 1.5% in Israel's Knesset (it was 1% before 1992), and 10% in the Turkish parliament.