On 19 April 2015 the political committee of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party decided, without consensus, to amend the constitution to allow a president to be re-elected once, allowing incumbent President Danilo Medina to be presented for re-election, based on his high poll ratings.

[4] This led to tensions between party members and leaders, especially amongst supporters of Leonel Fernandez who was a pre-candidate for the elections.

[5][6][7] After several weeks of internal disputes, the political committee, including Fernandez and Medina, agreed on 28 May to vote for the amendment.

[9] The president was elected using the two-round system; if no candidate had received more than 50% plus 1 of the vote, a second-round runoff would have been held in June 2016.

In the Congress, the 190 members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected in three groups; 178 were elected using proportional representation from 32 multi-member constituencies based on the 31 provinces and the Distrito Nacional, with the number of seats based on the population of each province.