Panachage (, from French meaning "blend, mixture") is the name given to a procedure provided for in several open-list variants of the party-list proportional representation system. It gives voters more than one vote in the same ballot and allows them to distribute their votes between or among individual candidates from different party lists. Seats are allocated to parties based on party vote share, with the seats of a party going to the most-popular candidate(s) of that party.
It is used in elections at all levels in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland; in congressional elections in Ecuador, El Salvador, and Honduras; and in local elections in a majority of German states, in Czechia, and in French communes with under 1,000 inhabitants.
Other, non-proportional, ordinal voting systems, such as plurality-at-large voting, limited voting, and cumulative voting, can also allow individuals to distribute their votes between candidates from different parties. Cardinal voting systems like approval voting and Approval-PR also allow it.
Fictitious example
The Central Strelsau constituency in the Ruritanian Assembly of the Republic elects six members. Three lists, containing twenty-two candidates in total, are vying for its seats. There are 6,750 voters, and the voters can each select a maximum of six candidates and seats are distributed by the D'Hondt method.
The list totals mean that, on the basis of proportionality, the Social Democratic Party is entitled to three seats, National Consolidation two, and the League of Concerned Citizens one.
For the SDP, Megan Vargas and Matt Wright are elected first and second, and the tie for third place on the SDP list is broken in favor of the highest-ranked candidate: Pranav Kapoor. However, Megan Vargas – a non-political celebrity placed last on the list as a sign of endorsement – in the event declines election; accordingly, her place is taken by the next highest-ranked candidate: namely, Judy Bogart. Tricia Chapman and Bob Jones are the two list members elected for National Consolidation. Sam Miller is initially elected for the LCC, but also declines election – in this case with the intention of ensuring that his list's leading candidate, Sylvia Ambrosetti, gets a seat.
The effects that panachage can have on an election can be demonstrated simply by comparing these results with those that would have been obtained under a closed-list system:
Only three of the candidates who would have been elected under the closed list were also initially elected under panachage. Of the two who declined election, only one was replaced by a presumptive closed-list electee.
Argentina
From 1912 to 1948, and from 1958 and 1962, Argentine voters had the possibility of crossing out or adding candidates to the electoral lists of the legislative elections.
Belgium
Until an 1899 reform in favour of an open-list electoral system and the parliamentary elections in 1900, panachage was possible in provincial and parliamentary elections in Belgium. Candidates were placed on lists in alphabetical order of surname.
Municipal elections were held under the panachage system until passage of the 5 July 1976 Law. This change was adopted before the first elections (October 1976) following the 1976 communes merger, which reduced the number of Belgian communes from 2,359 to 596. Bills were introduced in 1995 and 1999 by senators from the Volksunie to reinstitute panachage, but they were never put to votes.
Ecuador
In the Ecuadorian parliamentary elections, voters have as many votes as there are seats to be filled. They may use their votes to support candidates across party lines (and they may also give several votes to a single candidate).
El Salvador
El Salvador adopted an open list proportional system for the 2012 legislative elections. It introduced panachage for the 2015 elections: "For the first time, voters will be able to select individual candidates from any party rather than being forced to vote for a single party with an established list of candidates. Voters can still opt to simply choose a party.".
France
Since 2014, voters in municipal elections in communes having fewer than 1,000 inhabitants (at the time: 26,879 communes, representing 73.5% of the total) have been able to cast ballot papers indicating their preference for candidates either listed or named individually, and, in addition, cross out if they so wish the names of one or more candidates. (Before that time, the upper population limit for communes qualified for this system of voting had been 3,500.) The number of candidates selected by a voter must not, however, exceed the total number of available seats.