Closed list in Spain means that if Juan, Filipe, Carlos, and Isabella appear on a party´s list in that order and the party wins enough for 2 MPs to be elected from that province, then Juan and Filipe go to Parliament.
Open lists is where voters put some kind of indication on their ballot paper as to whom among the party they would like to see elected if the party wins any seats. Exactly how varies.
I really find the Swiss panachage system to be interesting where in a canton with say 8 MPs, you have 8 votes, and can cast them for whoever you like, and can cast a vote for a person more than once so long as the total number of votes for all candidates is 8 or less. If a candidate is affiliated with a party then each vote cast for them counts as one for the party too. If the party wins 25% of the vote in the canton, then they need 2 MPs. Of the members of the party, the two with the most votes from all ballots are elected. Parties print a list of their own candidates, but a voter could pick and choose from multiple parties. Independents win if they win 1/nth of the vote in their own right, n being the number of seats. Outside groups can also point to individuals whom they endorse, such as a youth organization listing all the people from any party or independents who support youth policy, same with environment policy, Christian policy, seniors policy, whoever is supporting the city council´s project to build a tram line in some city, etc. Switzerland does not use thresholds for the record. But that is just my favourite list system.
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In Denmark we use both … or rather … most parties use open lists, except the socialist party, *Enhedslisten*/The Red-Green Alliance—full disclaimer: I’m a member of this party—which uses a closed list.
This is a holdover from the formation of the party, where the closed list was a compromise, to ensure that not one of the parties who cooperated to form the Alliance came to dominate the list. Nowadays, the closed list sees critique from voters _and_ members, as the Alliance has come to function as a party in its own right, rather than a cooperation between three different socialist parties (a Trotskyist, a Maoist and _Venstresocialisterne_ (sort of platformist-autonomist, I guess?)) It’s also often cited by detractors of the party as an example of how “undemocratic” our party is, despite the party list being agreed upon through democratic means. Just only for members, not for the broad population.
I personally have little relation to the issue, I think both systems have strenght and weaknesses.
In my country they use closed ones. And most of the members are part of criminal and corruption gang. Open ones are better. As far as i know open ones are controlled by the people using referendums. That does not works on more corrupted countries.
Well you already declined mine in more detail than i would have known. Its fine as it is, i dont have much of an opinion on it tbh.
Here in switzerland parliamentary elections arent all that important, as we get to vote on a lot of individual policies direcly and often. So who exactly is in parliament is much less meaningful than in most other places and people are much more likely to discuss individual policies than party politics.