Understanding Spain's Electoral System and D'Hondt Method

The Spanish Electoral System

Spain holds several types of elections for different levels of government, each with its own set of rules and representation systems.

• Local Authorities: Elects city and town councillors.
• Autonomous Parliaments: Elects members for the regional governments.
• National Parliament (Cortes Generales): Elects members for the Congress of Deputies and the Senate.
• European Parliament: Elects Spain's representatives (MEPs).

Most elections, including those for the Congress, Autonomous Parliaments, and European Parliament, use a proportional representation system based on the D'Hondt method.

The Congress of Deputies: Proportional Representation

The Congress of Deputies has 350 members. The electoral district in Spain is the province, resulting in 52 districts. The electoral law (LOREG Act of 1985) introduces a distorting element by mandating that all provinces elect a minimum of 2 members, with the rest distributed according to population. This leads to the overrepresentation of sparsely populated provinces.

Consequently, the number of votes required to secure a seat varies significantly. In less populated provinces, it can be around 30,000 votes, while in the most populated provinces, it can be as high as 150,000 votes. This system tends to favor a two-party system (bipartisanship).

The Senate: A Mixed System

In contrast to the proportional system, the Senate uses a limited majority vote system. Voters have one less vote than the number of available seats. For example:

• Most provinces elect 4 senators, and the voter can only select 3 candidates.
• Ceuta and Melilla each elect 2 senators.

In addition to these directly elected senators, each autonomous community's parliament appoints one senator, plus an additional senator for every million inhabitants.

Voting Lists: Closed vs. Open

The type of voting list differs significantly between the two houses of parliament.

• Closed and Locked Lists: For most elections in Spain (Congress, local, regional, European), lists are closed and locked. This means that when a party presents itself for an election, it draws up an ordered list of candidates. Voters must cast a categorical vote for a single party list without altering the order of candidates.
• Open Lists (Panachage): The Senate's list system is completely open, a method known as panachage. The voter may mark the individual candidates they want, regardless of whether they belong to the same party.

The D'Hondt Method for Seat Allocation

The D'Hondt method is an algorithm used to allocate seats among various parties in a proportional representation election. It is named after the Belgian politician and mathematician Victor D'Hondt. This system tends to favor larger parties more than other division systems, such as the Sainte-Laguë method.

How It Works

After all votes are counted, a series of quotients is calculated for each party list. The formula for these quotients is:

Quotient = V / N

Where V is the total number of votes received by the party list, and N is each integer from 1 up to the total number of seats to be allocated in the constituency (i.e., 1, 2, 3, ...).

The quotients from all parties are then ordered from highest to lowest. Seats are assigned to the party lists corresponding to the highest quotients until all available seats are filled. The order in which seats are distributed to individuals on each list depends on the list system: it is predetermined by the party in a closed list system, whereas voters have some influence in an open list system.