Voting and Elections

Voting and Elections

Election campaigns are well organised. The general order of events is as follows:

Voting - Foreigner nationals wishing to vote in local (but not regional or national) elections need to prepare in advance in order to be admitted to the polls on election day. As well a being Enpadronado, they must ensure thay are on the separate Electoral roll listing.

Municipal Elections - The last town hall municipal elections in Spain took place in May 2019. They take place every four years.

Provincial Elections – these elections take place indirectly as the “Diputación Provincial” is actually a body of representatives of town halls from across each province. Voting is therefore indirect by Municipal Elections.

National Elections - The last national parliament elections in Spain took place in 2011, 2015, 2016 and April and November 2019. They take place every four years.

Political Parties - Across Andalucia there are essentially six political parties conpeting.

Regional Elections - The Andalucia regional elections to the Andalucia Parliament take place every four years. Since Andalucia region was formed there have been elections in 1982, 1986, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, March 2015, 2 December 2018, 19 June 2022.

Procedure

• Candidates are chosen: - The political parties choose the candidates, register (with electoral college) and publish the candidate names in an ordered list from most to least important candidates. This means that citizens vote for parties and not for individual candidates.

• Pre-campaign: - This begins approximately eight weeks before the actual elections.

• Campaign: - This begins approximately two weeks before. All the canvassing for votes must cease at midnight on Friday before the Sunday election day. No campaigning is permitted either on the last day (the so-called "day of reflection") or on election day, which is normally a Sunday.

• Elections: - These take place at what are known as "colegios electorales", which are simply the various places in your local community where voting takes place. Members of the European Union residing in Spain, Norwegians meeting specific criteria (*), and UK citizens under a bilateral treaty signed on 21-01-2019 are allowed to vote in Spain in local (municipal) election. Read the page about voting procedure to learn more about the procedures foreigners must follow to vote.

(*)Norwegians must certify that they have been residing in Spain for at least three years. Because residency cards do not state when residency began, the only way to certify how long you have been here is to show that you have been registered in your town's padrón for at least 3 years.