Vote count

Once the voting is over, the counting of the votes begins at the polling stations.

The counting of the votes is carried out by the Presiding Officer, who removes the envelopes one by one from the corresponding ballot box and reads out the name of the candidature or, where appropriate, the names of the candidates voted for. The Presiding Officer shows each ballot paper, once it has been read out, to the auditors and proxies.

According to the regulations, firstly, the elections to the Congress of Deputies are counted, and secondly, the elections to the Senate are counted.

At the end of the count, any disputes and/or protests will be resolved by majority vote. The Presiding Officer shall then announce the result aloud, stating the number of registered voters, the number of certificates presented, the number of invalid ballot papers, the number of abstentions and the number of votes obtained by each candidate.

The Polling Station publishes the results in the form of the minutes of the vote count, a copy of which will be given to the representative of the Administration and to the representatives of each candidacy, to the auditors, proxies and candidates who request it.

The results are known so quickly because there is a complex and advanced procedure in place for transmitting the information.

At each polling station there is a representative of the Administration who, once the counting of the votes has been completed, receives a copy of the count record from the Presiding Officer with the results from that polling station and sends them to the data aggregation centre at the Ministry of the Interior.

  1. These results, which are announced on election day by the Government of the Nation, abide by the provisions contained in article 98.2 of the LOREG: “The government must provide provisional information on the election results”.
  2. The official and final count is carried out by the Provincial Electoral Boards and begins three days after the elections.
  3. The official results are those that are published in the Official State Gazette.

Before proceeding to the definitive count, the competent Electoral Board is constituted as a polling station to count the votes of absentees. At eight o’clock in the morning, with the auditors designated by the concurrent candidatures, the Presiding Officer places the envelopes with the absent residents’ votes received until the same day in the ballot box and the Secretary writes down the names of the voters on the list. The Board then counts the votes and incorporates the results into the final tally.

The general or definitive count (art. 103 et seq. LOREG) is carried out on the third day following that of the voting by the corresponding Electoral Board. It is a single event which is public in nature.

The Presiding Officer draws up the minutes of the constitution of the Board and signs them together with the members, the Secretary and the people duly accredited as representatives and proxies of the candidatures.

The counting of the votes begins with the Secretary reading out the legal provisions. The envelopes (envelope number 1 with the electoral documentation corresponding to each polling station) which are delivered to the Courts on the day of the elections are then opened.

The Secretary announces the summaries of the voting at each polling station. During the counting of the votes, the Board cannot nullify any minutes or votes and can only verify the count and the total votes at the corresponding polling stations in accordance with the minutes or copies of the minutes from the polling stations. If there are any material, factual or arithmetical errors, they will be rectified.

The counting of the votes will not be interrupted and it will be completed no later than the sixth day after the elections.