Glossari
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Constituency
Geographical area encompassing all the voters whose votes decide the distribution of seats. In European elections it is national; in general elections it is the province; in regional elections it is the province (except on island regions, where it is island-wide, and in Asturias and Murcia, another internal division); and in municipal elections it is the municipality. In the elections to the General Council of Aran the constituency is the terçon.
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Consulates
Spanish government offices abroad which confirm the register of absent residents (CERA) for election purposes. This is where voters who are resident abroad can vote in person or arrange for postal voting for general, European and regional elections.
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Count record
Official document showing all the count details from a polling station committee: electoral roll, electoral roll certifications, spoilt ballots, blank ballots, ballots for each list, etc. It has to be signed by all the members of the committee (chair, members and observers).
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Counted electoral roll
Sum of voters corresponding to the polling station committees counted up to a certain point in time. It is normally expressed as a percentage of the total electoral roll.
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D'Hondt method
Electoral formula which is proportional. It is used in Spanish Parliament, Parliament of Catalonia, European Parliament and municipal elections. For each constituency, the votes obtained by the lists which have passed the threshold are divided by a continuous series of natural numbers (1, 2, 3 and so on) called dividers. The seats are assigned according to the size of the quotients obtained.
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Data processing centre (CPD)
Facility where computer equipment and calculation programs are installed for polling station committee aggregation operations, counting votes and, in general, any computer operation or process for counting provisional results.
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Data transmission centre (CDD)
Place where provisional election results are publicly announced by means of interim reports on paper, data on computer media and on television.
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Data transmission incidents
Any incident which prevents proper transmission or recording of election day data. They include problems in receiving data and results from a polling station committee as well as mistakes in drawing up records which mean the information has to be checked. In general, any polling station committee that does not have correct results is an incident.
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Day of reflection
Day before the election day that signals the end of the election campaign. It is illegal to try to persuade people to vote for a particular list or to try to influence their vote in any way on this day.
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Election announcement
Statement by the competent body in the relevant tier of government announcing the election date with a calendar for nominations, announcement, election campaign, etc.
