Imperiali quota

The Imperiali quota or pseudoquota is an unusually-low electoral quota named after Belgian senator Pierre Imperiali. Some election laws used in largest remainder systems mandate it as the portion of votes needed to guarantee a seat.

The Czech Republic and Belgium are the only countries that currently use the Imperiali quota, while Italy and Ecuador used it in the past.. Belgium only uses the Imperiali quota for local elections.

The pseudoquota is unpopular because of its logically incoherent nature: it is possible for elections using the Imperiali quota to have more candidates pass quota than open seats. When more pass quota than the number of open seats, the result must be recalculated using a different method to allocate seats. This method can be as simple as using relative standing in the votes (plurality). Fair allocation of seats can also be done by using the largest remainder rule.

In some cases, the use of the Imperiali quota distributes seats in a way that is a hybrid between majoritarian and proportional representation, rather than providing actual proportional representation.

Being smaller than the Droop quota and much smaller than the Hare quota, it aids both more-popular parties and less-popular parties. More-popular parties do not suffer from vote splitting that might deny them additional seats; smaller parties might take a seat due to the Imperiali being low when under the Droop they might be denied.

The Imperiali quota is a part of the Imperiali seat-allocation method of increasingly smaller quotas used in Belgium local elections.