Elections in Chile

Elections in Chile are held nationwide, including the presidency, parliament, regional offices, and municipal positions.

Presidential elections are held to select the chief of state and head of government for a four-year term, allowing for non-consecutive re-election.

Parliamentary elections follow a system of proportional representation, and the country's bicameral Congress consists of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate.

The country conducts primaries, both legal and extralegal, to select candidates for various positions.

The voting process is conducted in-person and requires a national identity card or passport.

[5] According to the Constitution, presidential elections take place on the third Sunday of November in the year before the current president's term expires.

[3] The country is divided into 60 electoral districts for the Chamber of Deputies and 19 senatorial constituencies for the Senate.

Each electoral district and senatorial constituency directly elects two representatives,[4] totaling 120 deputies and 38 senators.

The number of signatures required is at least 0.5% of the total votes cast in the last Chamber of Deputies election in that electoral district (for a lower-chamber seat) or last Senate election in that senatorial constituency (for a Senate seat).

[4] Two or more political parties can form an alliance, known as a "pact," to present up to two candidates per electoral district or senatorial constituency.

The dictatorship used gerrymandering to create electoral districts that favored rightist parties, with a positive bias towards the more conservative rural areas of the country.

The vote-to-seat ratio was lower in districts that supported Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite and higher in those with the strongest opposition.

The authoritarian regime also made it difficult to change the system, requiring a three-fifths majority in both chambers to modify it.

[3] Members of the Concert of Parties for Democracy believe that the system undermines their majority in Congress and exaggerates the representation of the right.

[10] The right views the system as necessary for the country's stability[11][12] and to encourage the creation of large coalitions.

[13] The left sees the system as undemocratic,[12] denying representation to candidates outside the two main coalitions.

The new system was introduced in the 2017 general elections[14] and significantly changed the composition of Congress.

The governor is supported by a board consisting of regional advisors (consejeros regionales or Cores), who are also elected directly.

Prior to that, the regional government was led by an Intendant (Intendente), appointed by the President of the Republic.

In October 2009, the Constitution was modified to allow regional advisors to be elected directly through universal suffrage.

These additional advisors were distributed among provinces based on their proportion of the regional population in the latest census, using the D'Hondt method.

[3] Mayors are elected by a simple majority, while councilmen seats (ranging from 6 to 10, depending on the municipality's registered voters) are decided using proportional representation,[22] similar to the D'Hondt method.

The Constitution allows municipalities to hold binding referendums to address various local issues.

[24] There is a system of government-run primaries to select candidates for president, senator, deputy, and mayor.

[25] The law states that primaries take place on the twentieth Sunday before the election.

The Concertación coalition selected its candidate for President of the Republic through primaries in 1993, 1999 and 2009 (in 2005, they were canceled after one of two contenders quit the race).

The voter will then receive the ballot(s) with the names, numbers, and party affiliations of all candidates, and go to a voting booth.

[4] Most polling places are located in schools or sporting centers and security is provided by the armed forces and uniformed police (Carabineros) before, during, and after the elections.

[28] The state of suffrage in Chile since 1833: No Chilean Constitution has ever explicitly prohibited women from voting.