Parliamentary elections were held in Iceland on 10 September 1908, alongside a referendum on prohibition.
[1] The Althing was dissolved by King Frederik VIII in the early spring in order to elect a new parliament that would vote on a draft status law that would define the position of Iceland in the Danish realm.
[2] The election campaign was one of the acrimonious in Icelandic political history due to the controversial nature of the draft.
[4] The elections were the first to take place since changes to the electoral system in 1904; they were the first to be held using the secret ballot,[5] and also saw the three-round majoritarian system replaced by plurality voting as multiple rounds of voting on the same day were no longer possible.
[6] Candidates opposed to the draft law won a landslide majority, whilst voter turnout was 72.4%, nearly 20% more than the 1903 elections.