USAID removed its usual branding requirement on its sponsored activities. As a result, the US was accused of trying to influence the outcome of the elections. The European Union supplied election observers to "assess the whole election process, including the legal framework, the political environment and campaign, electoral preparations, voting and counting as well as the post-election period". In the 1996 elections, 88 PLC members were chosen from several multi-member constituencies via block voting. In advance of the 2006 elections, the electoral law was changed to enlarge the PLC from 88 to 132 seats and to introduce a degree of proportional representation via a parallel voting system. The mixed voting system divided PLC seats into two groups: 66 seats (50%) elected by proportional representation of the Palestinian territories as a single district, and 66 seats (50%) by the majoritarian system in different electoral districts. Each voter received two ballots. On the first, the voter chose one of the registered party lists. 66 of the seats were distributed proportionally (in accordance with the Sainte-Laguë method) to those lists that received more than 2% of the total list votes cast. The candidates from each list would be elected in the order they appear on the list. Each list had to include at least one woman in the first three names, at least one woman in the next four names, and at least one woman in the five names that followed. The second ballot was for a voter's local electoral district, which may have more than one members to be elected. The voter could cast up to as many votes for individual candidates as there were seats in his or her district. Votes were unweighted, and the candidates with the most votes were elected. For example, a voter in the Nablus district could cast up to six votes; the six candidates with the highest number of vote were elected. In some districts, one or two seats were set aside for the Christian candidates with the most votes. For instance, in Ramallah, a five-seat district, the Christian candidate with the most votes was elected, even if he or she was not among top five candidates overall. The six seats reserved for Christians were considered the minimum quota for their representation in the PLC. There were 16 electoral districts, with the number of seats in each determined by its population:  Before the 2006 elections, the PLC was dominated by the Fatah movement, which held 68 of the 88 seats. However, Fatah had been beset by internal strife, with younger and more popular figures like Mohammed Dahlan (who took part in the negotiations of the 1993 Oslo Accords) and Marwan Barghouti (serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail on terrorism charges) levelling allegations of corruption against the Fatah leadership.