Historically, parties had the option of forming an electoral alliance ("lijstverbinding"), in which case they would participate in the above calculations as one party and therefore increase their chance of being assigned residual seats. The allocation of those seats among the parties within a "lijstverbinding" was, however, done using the largest remainder method, which is more favourable toward smaller parties rather than the bigger ones if there is a considerable difference in size. But the overall advantage was greatest for small parties of comparable size. The option of forming a "lijstverbinding" was abolished in 2017.