Post by account_disabled on Mar 4, 2024 5:17:20 GMT -5
The elections are back and, with them, also the debate: is the D'Hondt Law fair ? The Spanish electoral system and its territorial particularity—by constituencies—means that the number of votes necessary to obtain a seat varies depending on the province . The law, historically designed to reward majority parties , punishes the dispersion of the vote by constituencies and "second table" positions, thus favoring the concentration of votes. This anomaly explains cases such as ¡Teruel Exist!, the great surprise in the 10-N elections , which achieved a seat in the Congress of Deputies with only 19,696 votes. For comparison, each parliamentarian elected in the Community of Madrid cost around 102,000 ballots per party. This disintegration that has brought so much joy to certain parties also meant a bad time for others. This is the case of Más País, the party led by Íñigo Errejón , which with its 577,055 votes could barely qualify for 3 seats in Congress.
Each one cost 192,351 . The data from the Animalist Party (PACMA) are surprising, as usual . With a total of 226,469 supports, the party did not achieve any type of representation despite having more votes than several of the provincial alternatives. The clearest case would be that of Navarra Suma, with 2 deputies and less than 95,000 ballots . In fact, PACMA has obtained more Middle East Phone Number List votes than five other parties that have achieved parliamentary representation . The reason is as explained above: by having votes spread throughout the State and not concentrated in a particular region, the electoral law makes it more difficult for them to "be among the first" elected in a province. It is the opposite example to formations such as those mentioned ¡Teruel Exists! and Navarra Suma, but also from the PRC, Canarian Coalition and the BNG , all with representation in the Lower House.
The most extreme example is that of Coalition for Melilla , a party that with only 8,925 votes was about to win a seat for the autonomous city. On the other hand, if we look at the results of the five big parties, there are also big winners. The PSOE is the best example of this: despite having lost nearly a million votes, it was only penalized in 3 seats , while Unidas Podemos, with nearly 500,000 less support, has lost a total of 7 deputies. But the biggest loser from the division of the vote has been Ciudadanos . If it normally attracted a multitude of support in the big cities and scratched in the rural world, the 10-N elections presented a catastrophic scenario for the orange formation: they do not win in any constituency and each deputy costs them 163,754 votes . One in four seats lost. The law penalizes, and it shows. The disaster of Ciudadanos was such that they have gone from disputing the leadership of the right-wing bloc to the PP to fighting to get their own group in Congress.