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180
III. CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION Of SWEDEN.
a »graduated voting scale» for the election itself, i. e. the number of
votes depends upon the amount at which every voter is taxed (see
under Municipal Administration here below).
For eligibility to membership in the First Chamber, the candidate
must be 35 years old, and must own and, for at least three years,
have owned real estate appraised at a minimum of 80,000 kronor, or
must pay taxes and, for at least three years, have paid taxes on an
annual income of at least 4,000 kronor.1 As, however, the members
of this chamber do not enjoy any salary, it is practically necessary
that the candidate has a much higher degree of opulence than that
here stipulated, in order that a person may be able to accept this office,
at all events if he is not domiciled in the Capital. This
circumstance causes the more remote Läns frequently to take their
representatives for the First Chamber from Stockholm, but, in that case,
preferably such as are natives of the constituency in question or have
for some time had their occupation there. — The members of the
First Chamber are elected for a term of nine years, reckoned in every
case from the election-day. Thus the members of the Chamber are
replaced successively, unless it be dissolved by the government, which
has hitherto not occurred.
The constituting of the Second Chamber is based on a radical
distinction between country and town. The whole number of members
is 230, of whom 150 are taken from the country and 80 from the
towns.
The number of constituencies is at the present 196, of which the
150 in the country each elect one representative. Of the 46 town
constituencies, 41 elect each its representative, while the towns of Gefle and
Norrköping each elect 2, Malmö 4, Gothenburg 9, and Stockholm 22.
The election of more than one representative takes place by means of
list-ballots, but in Stockholm, the city is divided into five districts or
wards, each electing four or five representatives.
The Organic Law of 1866 really contained quite different stipulations to
those cited above, which have been in force only since 1894. According to
the law of 1866, in the country every judicial district (domsaga) should elect a
representative; and if the district had more than 40,000 inhabitants, it was
divided into two constituencies. The largest towns (with more than 10,000
inhab.) had a right to elect one representative for each full ten thousand
of the inhabitants; the smaller towns were grouped together in constituencies
of at least 6,000 and at the most 12,000 inhabitants each. In fact, the country
in this manner was given one representative for about 27,000 inhabitants,
while the towns were given one for about 10,000, which peculiar circumstance
is explained by the need of a certain protection for the interests of the
towns, which would otherwise have remained in a very marked minority, since
their inhabitants in 1866 numbered only 12 % of the total population of the
kingdom.
1 A krona (plur. kronor) corresponds to 1’10 shilling or 0’268 dollar.
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