Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District) - Boundaries and Electoral System

Boundaries and Electoral System

Spain

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Under Article 68 of the Spanish constitution, the boundaries of the electoral district must be the same as the province of Valencia and, under Article 140, this can only be altered with the approval of congress. At the time of the 2008 election, the largest municipality, Valencia City, had 585,000 voters out of the total electorate of 1,900,000. The next largest municipalities were Torrent (56,000), Sagunto (49,000), Gandia (48,000), Paterna (44,000), Alzira (32,000) and Mislata (32,000). There are no other municipalities with electorates over 30,000.

Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. The electoral system used is closed list proportional representation with seats allocated using the D'Hondt method. Only lists which poll 3% of the total vote (which includes votes "en blanco" i.e. for none of the above) can be considered. Under article 12 of the constitution, the minimum voting age is 18.

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