Turnout: 59.90%
About this election
Norway's municipal council elections (kommunestyrevalg) of 14 September 2015 were held alongside the county elections. The Labour Party finished first nationally with 32.99% of the vote and around 3,460 council seats, ahead of the Conservatives on 23.17% and the Progress Party on 9.47%. The most-watched outcome was in the cities: the Conservatives lost control of both Oslo and Bergen to the left. The Centre Party (8.49%) again won far more individual councillors (about 1,774) than its vote share implied, thanks to its dominance of Norway's many small rural municipalities. Turnout was 59.9%.
Municipal councillors are elected every four years by party-list proportional representation (modified Sainte-Laguë) within each municipality; voters may cast personal votes for, and cumulate, individual candidates, and the size of the council scales with the municipality's population. Foreign nationals who have been resident in Norway for at least three years may vote in local elections.
The vote came two years into Erna Solberg's Conservative-led government and was held against the backdrop of the European refugee crisis, which dominated the closing weeks of the campaign. The left's capture of the major cities was read as an early warning for the national governing parties.
Norwegian Election Directorate (Valgdirektoratet) — valgresultat.no.