Albacete (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Albacete is one of the 52 electoral districts (circunscripciones) used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies - the lower chamber of the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

Parliament, the Cortes Generales

Cortes Generales

The Cortes Generales is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate . The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution...

. It is one of the five electoral districts which correspond to the provinces of Castilla La Mancha. Albacete

Albacete

Albacete is a city and municipality in southeastern Spain, 258 km southeast of Madrid, the capital of the province of Albacete in the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. The municipality had a population of c. 169,700 in 2009....

is the largest town accounting for almost half the electorate and there are no other municipalities with electorates over 25,000.

Boundaries and electoral system

Under Article 68 of the Spanish constitution
the boundaries must be the same as the province of Albacete

Albacete (province)

Albacete is a province of central Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Granada, Murcia, Alicante, Valencia, Cuenca, Ciudad Real and Jaén....

and under Article 140 this can only be altered with the approval of congress. Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage

Universal suffrage

Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...

in a secret ballot

Secret ballot

The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...

. The electoral system used is closed list

Closed list

Closed list describes the variant of party-list proportional representation where voters can only vote for political parties as a whole and thus have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected...

proportional representation

Proportional representation

Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

with seats allocated using the D'Hondt method

D'Hondt method

The d'Hondt method is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. The method described is named after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt who described it in 1878...

. Only lists which poll 3% or more of all valid votes cast, including votes "en blanco" i.e. for "none of the above" can be considered for seats. Under article 12 of the constitution, the minimum voting age is 18.

Eligibility

Article 67.3 of the Spanish Constitution prohibits dual membership of the Cortes and regional assemblies, meaning that candidates must resign from Regional Assemblies if elected. Article 70 also makes active judges, magistrates, public defenders, serving military personnel, active police officers and members of constitutional and electoral tribunals ineligible.

Number of members

Albacete has returned four members at every election since the restoration of democracy.

Under Spanish electoral law, all provinces are entitled to a minimum of 2 seats with a remaining 248 seats apportioned according to population. These laws are laid out in detail in the 1985 electoral law. (Ley Orgánica del Régimen Electoral General) The practical effect of this has been to overrepreseent smaller provinces like Albacete at the expense of larger provinces. Alabcete had a ratio of 74,695 voters per deputy in 2004 a figure below the Spanish average of 98,777 voters per deputy .

Summary of seats won 1977–2008

Generally Alabacete has been balanced with the PSOE winning two seats and the main party of the centre right winning two. In the 1980s however, the PSOE won three seats leaving the Popular Party and predecessors with just one seat.

	1977	1979	1982	1986	1989	1993	1996	2000	2004	2008
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...	2	2	3	3	3	2	2	2	2	2
Democratic Centre Union	2	2
Popular Alliance / People's Party People's Party (Spain) The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...			1	1	1	2	2	2	2	2

Seats shown for the People's Party include seats won by their predecessors, the Popular Alliance and the Popular Coalition before 1989.

Vote share summary 1977-2008

	1977	1979	1982	1986	1989	1993	1996	2000	2004	2008
Democratic Centre Union	38.1	39.0	8.7
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...	33.2	38.7	53.6	51.1	49.7	46.1	43.9	41.2	46.3	45.5
Popular Alliance / People's Party People's Party (Spain) The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...	9.4	4.9	28.9	31.9	30.8	40.5	44.7	51.2	47.0	47.6
United Left United Left (Spain) The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain... (IU)	8.0	12.4	4.6	4.5	7.4	9.3	9.6	5.0	3.9	3.4
Democratic and Social Centre (CDS)			2.0	8.7	8.4	1.9	0.3	0.1	0.2
Union, Progress and Democracy Union, Progress and Democracy Union, Progress and Democracy is a Spanish political party founded in September 2007.It is a progressivist party, between social democracy and social liberalism. One of its goals is to build a federal system for Spain and European Union, with clear responsibilities distributed among local... (UPD)										1.3

2008 General Election

People's Party (Spain)

The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

United Left (Spain)

The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain...

Union, Progress and Democracy

Union, Progress and Democracy is a Spanish political party founded in September 2007.It is a progressivist party, between social democracy and social liberalism. One of its goals is to build a federal system for Spain and European Union, with clear responsibilities distributed among local...

|align="right" |3,078
|align="right" |1.29
|align="right" |0
|align="left" |
|-
|align=left|Others
|align="right" |2,619
|align="right" |1.10
|align="right" |0
|align="right" |
|-
|}

2004 General Election

Summary of the 14 March 2004 Congress of Deputies election results

Spanish legislative election, 2004

Legislative elections were held in Spain on 14 March 2004. At stake were all 350 seats in the lower house of the Cortes Generales, the Congress of Deputies, and 208 seats in upper house, the Senate. The governing People's Party was led into the campaign by Mariano Rajoy, successor to outgoing...

People's Party (Spain)

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

United Left (Spain)

|align="right" |9,145
|align="right" |3.89
|align="right" |0
|align="left" |
|-
|align=left|Others
|align="right" |2,453
|align="right" |1.00
|align="right" |0
|align="right" |
|-
|}

Source:

2000 General Election

Summary of the 12 March 2000 Congress of Deputies election results

Spanish legislative election, 2004

People's Party (Spain)

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

(Partido Socialista Obrero Español)
|align="right" |91,270
|align="right" |41.20
|align="right" |2
|align="left" | Manuel Aguilar^{^}, Matilde Valentín^#
|-
|align=left|United Left

United Left (Spain)

|align="right" |11,062
|align="right" |4.99
|align="right" |0
|align="left" |
|-
|align=left|Others
|align="right" |2,317
|align="right" |1.00
|align="right" |0
|align="right" |
|-
|}

^{^}Aguilar was replaced by Jesús Perea on 27 June 2000.
^#Valentín was replaced by Juan Solera on 17 June 2003

External links

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