What exactly is a party list? what are its functions?

Answer 1

Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems used in multiple-winner elections (e.g. elections to parliament), emphasizing proportional representation (PR). They can also be used as part of mixed additional member systems.

In these systems, parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats get allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives. Voters may vote directly for the party, as in Israel, or they may vote for candidates and that vote will pool to the party, as in Turkey and Finland.

There are two major and important variations of Party List systems, usually defined as closed list and open list elections: i.e. the order in which the party's list candidates get elected may be pre-determined by some method internal to the party (a closed list system) or they may be determined by the voters at large (an open list system).