Municipal elections
Municipal elections shall take place every four years. Next municipal elections will be held in 2026.
The National Electoral Commission shall announce when general municipal elections are to take place.
Municipal elections shall take place on the second Saturday of May, that does not fall on a Saturday before Pentecost.
If municipal elections are to be held on a Saturday before Pentecost, election day shall be brought forward by one week.
When voting in municipal elections, there are three types of elections;
Restricted proportional elections:
The election is limited to candidates on electoral lists and representatives on each list are elected in proportion to the quantity of votes cast for the list.
A voter then selects the list he/she likes best by marking X in a square in front of the letter of the list on the ballot.
Unrestricted elections:
There is no candidate list in the constituency.
The election is not limited to declared candidates as all electors are eligible for election with the exception of those legally exempt from the obligation to serve who have in advance declared their refusal to serve.
Voting at unrestricted elections for municipal councils shall be conducted by a voter writing on the ballot the full name and address of the principal members of the section of the ballot intended for the election of the principal members. On the portion of the bill intended for the election of alternates, he shall write the names of the alternates and their addresses in the order of his choice, so that they may take their seats up to the number to be elected.
Unopposed:
If only one candidate list has been submitted by the deadline for submitting candidatures the list submitted shall be elected unopposed.
Then there is no election in the municipality.
Geographical demarcation of municipal elections when new municipal councils are elected is each municipality.
At the 2022 municipal elections, there were 64 municipalities in Iceland.
All Icelandic citizens who have reached the age of 18 years on election day and who are registered as domiciled in the relevant municipality 38 days before election day.
Icelandic students in the Nordic countries who have reached the age of 18 on election day have the right to vote in the municipality where their legal domicile was registered upon their emigration.
All Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish citizens who are domiciled in Iceland and have reached the age of 18 on election day.
Other foreign nationals who have reached the age of 18 years on election day and have been domiciled in Iceland for three consecutive years prior to election day.