Editing Elections in Spain (section)

===Congress of Deputies===
The Congress is made out of 350 members directly elected by universal adult suffrage for a four-year term of office. Each one of Spain's fifty provinces is a constituency entitled to an initial minimum of two seats; the cities of [[Ceuta]] and [[Melilla]] elect one member each. The remaining 348 seats are allocated among the fifty provinces in proportion to their populations. Parties, federations, coalitions and ''agrupaciones de electores'' (electors' groups) may present candidates or lists of candidates. The [[closed list|lists are closed]], so electors may not choose individual candidates in, or alter the order of, such lists. Electors cast a ballot for a single list, or for a single candidate in Ceuta and Melilla.

The seats in each constituency are apportioned according to the [[highest average method|largest average method of proportional representation]] (PR), conceived by the Belgian mathematician Victor d'Hondt in 1899 ([[d'Hondt method]]). However, in order to participate in the allocation of seats, a list must receive at least three percent of all valid votes cast in the constituency, including [[blank ballot]]s. The single-member seats in Ceuta and Melilla are filled by the plurality or [[first-past-the-post]] method, under which the candidate obtaining the largest number of votes in the constituency is elected.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://electionresources.org/es/index_en.html#ASPECTS |title=General Aspects of the Electoral System |publisher=Election Resources on the Internet |access-date=2015-12-23}}</ref>

;Seat allocation in Congress

To illustrate the functioning of the system, the allocation of seats in the three provinces of the Self-Governing or Autonomous Community of [[Aragón]] - [[Huesca Province|Huesca]], [[Teruel Province|Teruel]] and [[Zaragoza Province|Zaragoza]] - for the [[1993 Spanish general election|June 1993 general election]] is presented here in detail. At the time, Zaragoza province had seven seats in Congress, while both Huesca and Teruel had three.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://electionresources.org/es/index_en.html#ALLOCATION |title=Allocation of Seats in Congress |publisher=Election Resources on the Internet |access-date=2015-12-23}}</ref>

In Zaragoza province, only four tickets, namely the [[Spanish Socialist Workers Party]] (PSOE), the [[Popular Party (Spain)|Popular Party]] (PP), the [[Aragonese Party]] (PAR) and the [[United Left (Spain)|United Left]] (IU) won at least three percent of the valid votes cast in the election - including blank ballots - and were thus entitled to participate in the allocation of constituency seats. The tickets were sorted by number of votes from top to bottom, and the votes polled by each of these were then divided by 1, 2, 3, and so on until the number of seats to be allocated was reached, as detailed below:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Division !! PSOE !! PP !! PAR !! IU
|-
| 1 || '''174,061''' || '''172,753''' || '''108,690''' || '''60,074'''
|-
| 2 || '''87,030''' || '''86,376''' || 54,345 || 30,037
|-
| 3 || '''58,020''' || 57,584 || 36,230 || 20,024
|-
| 4 || 43,515 || 43,188 || 27,172 || 15,018
|-
| 5 || 34,812 || 34,550 || 21,738 || 12,014
|-
| 6 || 29,010 || 28,792 || 18,115 || 10,012
|-
| 7 || 24,865 || 24,679 || 15,527 || 8,582
|-
| colspan="5" bgcolor="#E9E9E9" |
|-
! Seats || 3 || 2 || 1 || 1
|}
  
Seats were then awarded to the tickets obtaining the largest quotients or averages (shown in '''bold'''). As indicated, the PSOE won three seats, the PP two, the PAR one and IU one. The seats won by each ticket were awarded to the candidates included therein, according to their ranking on the lists: therefore, the first three candidates on the PSOE list were elected to Congress, as were the first two candidates on the PP list and the candidates at the top of the PAR and IU lists, respectively.

Meanwhile, the results of the election in Huesca province were as follows:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Division !! PSOE !! PP !! PAR !! IU
|-
| 1 || '''50,720''' || '''43,059''' || 23,784 || 9,756
|-
| 2 || '''25,360''' || 21,529 || 11,892 || 4,878
|-
| 3 || 16,906 || 14,353 || 7,928 || 3,252
|-
| colspan="5" bgcolor="#E9E9E9" |
|-
! Seats || 2 || 1 || 0 || 0
|}
 
The effective representation threshold in Huesca was 25,360 votes, or 19.0% of the valid vote.

Finally, the outcome of the election in Teruel was the following:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Division !! PSOE !! PP !! PAR !! IU
|-
| 1 || '''36,327''' || '''34,293''' || 12,070 || 3,990
|-
| 2 || '''18,163''' || 17,146 || 6,035 || 1,995
|-
| 3 || 12,109 || 11,431 || 4,023 || 1,330
|-
| colspan="5" bgcolor="#E9E9E9" |
|-
! Seats || 2 || 1 || 0 || 0
|}
  
The effective representation threshold in Teruel was 18,163 votes, or 20.2% of the valid vote.

Having concluded the allocation of Congress seats in the three Aragón constituencies, the following peculiarities stand out:

# The effective representation threshold in each province was substantially larger than the three percent barrier set forth by law: in all three constituencies, the seat apportionment would have been the same regardless of the statutory threshold.
# The number of votes required to attain a seat in Zaragoza province - the largest of three constituencies - was substantially higher than the amount required to that end in Huesca or in Teruel.
# The proportional allocation of seats in each constituency appeared to favor the major parties in general and specifically the majority party.