Parliamentary elections were held in Iceland on 10 September 1908, alongside a referendum on prohibition.Sverrir Jakobsson & Gudmundur Halfdanarson (2016) Historical Dictionary of Iceland, Rowman & Littlefield, pxxiv
Background The Althing was dissolved by King Frederik VIII in the early spring in order to elect a new parliament that would vote on a draft status law that would define the position of Iceland in the Danish realm.Jakobsson & Halfdanarson, p54 The election campaign was one of the acrimonious in Icelandic political history due to the controversial nature of the draft. The opposition was led by Skúli Thoroddsen, a member of the Independence Party.Jakobsson & Halfdanarson, p223
Electoral system The 36 members of the Althing were elected from a mix of single-member and two-member constituencies. The elections were the first to take place since changes to the electoral system in 1904; they were the first to be held using the secret ballot,Lester B. Orfield (1953) The Growth of Scandinavian Law, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., p109 and also saw the three-round majoritarian system replaced by plurality voting as multiple rounds of voting on the same day were no longer possible.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, pp953–954 The tax qualification for voting was also reduced, increasing the proportion of people able to vote to around 14% of the population, up from 7,786 in 1903 to 11,726.Nohlen & Stöver, p963
Results Candidates opposed to the draft law won a landslide majority, whilst voter turnout was 72.4%, nearly 20% more than the 1903 elections. As a result, the law was voted down in 1909, resulting in the resignation of Minister for Iceland Hannes Hafstein.
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