The Congress of Deputies is one of the two houses that make up the Cortes Generales, to which the Constitution has reserved a series of important functions and powers.
The Congress authorises the formation of the government, can cause its dismissal, makes an initial hearing of draft legislation and budgets, and must confirm or reject the Senate’s amendments or vetoes on these legislative texts.
There are a total of 350 deputies.
The distribution of deputies by province is as follows: Each of the fifty provinces has a minimum of two deputies. The cities of Ceuta and Melilla elect one deputy each.
The remaining 248 deputies are distributed among the fifty provinces in proportion to their population.
The Royal Decree calling the elections specifies the number of deputies to be elected in each province.
All deputies are elected by universal suffrage that is free, equal, direct and secret. In each province, as many deputies are elected as there are established in the Royal Decree of call for elections.
Political parties present their candidates in closed and sealed lists, so that on election day, the electorate cannot select individual candidates or alter the order of the lists, but will choose the ballot paper of the chosen party and place it in the appropriate envelope.