Ballots were handed in and scrutinized and cast votes were first counted in permanent and separate electoral wards where the ward election committees acting there were common to both the regional council and senate elections. The regional council elections took place in 13 653 electoral wards of which 4 514 were common to both the regional council and senate elections. The senate election was held in 4 827 electoral wards.

The elections took place on the territory of the Czech Republic only and were managed by the National Election Committee—the permanent election body. Act No. 130/2000 Coll., on Regional Council Elections, as last amended, and Act No. 247/1995 Coll., on the Election to Parliament of the CR, as last amended, regulated the competence of the individual election bodies in such a way that except for tasks of the ward election committees all organisational and technical preparations of the elections and the processing of election results were entrusted to central and local governments.


The regional council elections respected universal, equal and direct suffrage and were conducted by secret ballot according to the proportional representation principle. The number of seats for each regional council was set in proportion to the population of the region as of 1 January 2004 so that 45, 55 or 65 councillors could be elected. Compared to the elections in the year 2000, four regions, namely Vysočina, Jihomoravský, Olomoucký and Moravskoslezský, changed their territories in compliance with Act No. 387/2004 Coll., on Changes in the Borders of Regions by administrative transfers of certain municipalities among themselves.

The voters were CR nationals aged 18+ on the day of elections. They could only vote at those electoral wards where they were placed on the permanent electoral roll according to their domicile provided that they were not prevented from the exercise of the right to vote by an impediment stipulated by the law.

The voter cast their vote by using one ballot for a political party, movement or coalition (hereinafter referred to as the party) standing as a candidate and putting the ballot in official envelope in the ballot box, being allowed to give their priority votes to as many as four candidates selected on the ballot. However, only parties that won a minimum of 5% of votes of the total valid votes within the region could contest the preset number of seats in the council. The seats were then divided among them in one scrutiny according to a law-based algorithm by means of election factors. The seats won by a party were allocated to the candidates in the order of their ranking on the list of candidates. If a candidate got so many priority votes that they accounted for at least 10% of total votes for this party in the framework of the region, though, he/she was moved to rank first for the allocation of seat or on the list of substitutes.

Table 28-1 lists totals on voting results and voter turnout. Table 28-2 gives an overview of the composition of the elected regional councils, and Table 28-3 shows percentages of votes won by the parties, broken down by region.


The election to the Senate of Parliament of the CR was conducted in single-seat election districts by secret ballot on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage, pursuant to the principle of the first-past-the-post system of voting. In comparison with the year 1998, the territories of Election District No. 19 – Praha 11 and Election District No. 22 – Praha 10 changed as a result of a decrease in the population of the latter the under the limit stipulated by the law. The change was brought by Act No. 418/2004 Coll. and consisted in moving the territories of the city parts of Praha-Štěrboholy and Praha-Dubeč from Election District No. 19 to Election District No. 22.

The voters were CR nationals aged 18+ on the day of the election. The voter could vote at an electoral ward within his/her election district where he/she was placed on the electoral roll provided that he/she was not prevented from the exercise of the right to vote by an impediment stipulated by the law. CR nationals permanently residing abroad were also allowed to vote at any electoral ward of an election district where the election was held on condition that they were in the CR on the day of election.

The voter cast his/her vote by using one ballot for the candidate he/she chose, placing the ballot in official envelope and putting the envelope with the ballot in the ballot box. A candidate winning more than 50% of total valid votes in the election district was returned to the Senate. Where no candidate reached this limit, no senator was elected and the second round of the election was held in the election district concerned a week later. Only the two candidates, however, who won most valid votes in the first round, were through to the second round. In the first election round held on 5 and 6 November 2004, only one senator was elected (in Election District No. 7 – Plzeň-jih). The second round of the election thus took place in 26 election districts on 12 and 13 November 2004.

Table 28-4 gives basic voting results; Table 28-5 lists percentages of votes won by political parties, movements and coalitions which put up their candidates, and Table 28-6 shows the elected senators.
The sums of relative values do not have to equal 100 due to rounding off.

Full voting results by detailed geographical breakdown are available at the CZSO website www.volby.cz and in publications brought out according to the CZSO Catalogue of Publications.