Portugal's politics and elections

[Tender Branson]

Why does Portugal have more eligible voters (11 million) than actual people living in the country (10.5 million) ?

I know there are a lot of overseas registered "voters", but what's the point of having all of them on the voter rolls, if only 100.000 votes are returned ?

People who have been out of the country for 10 or 20 years should not be listed as eligible voters any longer ...

[Tender Branson]

2019 general elections: Overseas voting could reach 100,000 voters, a record high.

Until now 97,244 ballots from overseas have reached the Electoral Commission. This is a number 3 times higher than in 2015, where just 28,000 sent a ballot. The ballots need to delivered until October 6, in order to be counted on October 16. The final number could reach 100,000 and could beat the record of overseas ballots from 1980, 108,000 ballots.

Overall, in the 2019 general elections, 147,882 ballots have been cast, counting the overseas ballots and early voting data.

From what I have read, there are 1.6 million (!!!) "voters" registered as living abroad - but only 100.000 of them are voting in the election. 1.5 million are not.

That's only a turnout of 6% from Portuguese abroad.

IMO, only voters who still show an active interest in the elections of their former country should be included in the voter rolls (as in: they have to register themselves).

Everything else would just artificially lower turnout for the whole country.

It makes a difference if you have 9.4 million eligible and 5 million votes cast, or 11 million eligible and 5 million votes cast ...

[Tender Branson]

Why does Portugal have more eligible voters (11 million) than actual people living in the country (10.5 million) ?

I know there are a lot of overseas registered "voters", but what's the point of having all of them on the voter rolls, if only 100.000 votes are returned ?

People who have been out of the country for 10 or 20 years should not be listed as eligible voters any longer ...

It's was a stupid change in the electoral law, IMO. Basically, every person that has a Portuguese ID card is automatically registered to vote. In the past, only voters that were registered in the consulates and embassies could vote, but now all of them can vote. It will, of course, pervert the turnout rates, and even in the previous elections, going back to 2009, the numbers still don't add up. Because many people left Portugal during the years, they forgot to change their address meaning that in many parishes across Portugal itself, there are more registered voters than actual people leaving.

I already suspected that.

Of course, in Portugal, this kind of voter registration isn't changed, for now, because of one reason: seat distribution. If the electoral registration law was changed, many towns and districts would lose seats in the local and general elections, meaning less seats for parties to ran, and parties probably don't want that.

So, what you are trying to say is that cities/regions want to keep their power in parliament by inflating their number of eligible voters, even though these people have long abandoned these cities/regions and moved abroad ...

[Tender Branson]

Of course, in Portugal, this kind of voter registration isn't changed, for now, because of one reason: seat distribution. If the electoral registration law was changed, many towns and districts would lose seats in the local and general elections, meaning less seats for parties to ran, and parties probably don't want that.

So, what you are trying to say is that cities/regions want to keep their power in parliament by inflating their number of eligible voters, even though these people have long abandoned these cities/regions and moved abroad ...

Yep, it's basically all party power, mainly the two main parties, PS and PSD. There are cities that if they clean up the electoral voter registration lists, they could lose 2/3 seats in the local elections, and in the general elections, just look, for example, to Vila Real district: they have around 218,000 registered voters and elect 5 MPs, but they have a population of just above 200,000, meaning that if the voter rolls were updated, Vila Real could lose one seat that would go to the big district: Lisbon, Porto, Setúbal, Faro, Braga or Aveiro. That's one of the reasons, IMO, that electoral system should be changed.

Yes, the seats should obviously be distributed along the last census numbers, using only the resident population (or citizens of course, as they are the ones who can vote).

Which parties are benefitting from this current inflated seat system and which parties are losing out ? Or is it evenly distributed among parties and it's mostly about cities/regions who don't want to lose their clout in parliament ?

[Tender Branson]

Here is my prediction (even though I have no clue):

34% PS
32% PSD
10% BE
  6% CDU
  5% CDS-PP
  5% PAN
  2% CH
  6% Others

Turnout: 52%

[Tender Branson]

2019 general election: Turnout during the day.

Turnout until 12:00h:

2019 - 18.8% (-1.9)
2015 - 20.7%
2011 - 20.0%
2009 - 21.3%

From here: https://www.legislativas2019.mai.gov.pt/

Ughhh.

With those trends, it could only mean 5 million voters out of 10.81 million registered voters.

That would be just 46-47% turnout.

Considering this, I'm actually very happy with the 76% we had here last week.

[Tender Branson]

We'll see.

I only base this on the recent uptick of the PSD in the polls.

But I still have no clue which voters are more motivated ...

The ÖVP's trend for example was going down last week in the polls ... but ended up winning big.

[Tender Branson]

2019 general election: Turnout during the day.

Turnout until 12:00h:

2019 - 18.8% (-1.9)
2015 - 20.7%
2011 - 20.0%
2009 - 21.3%

From here: https://www.legislativas2019.mai.gov.pt/

Ughhh.

With those trends, it could only mean 5 million voters out of 10.81 million registered voters.

That would be just 46-47% turnout.

Considering this, I'm actually very happy with the 76% we had here last week.

Frankly, I don't know if this counts the overseas voting. I think this is only counts Portugal as a whole, meaning that turnout is lower than expected. We'll see.

CORRECTION:

In fact, that 18.8% turnout rate includes the 1,4 million registered voters overseas. Meaning that around 2,035,000 voters had already cast a ballot. Compared with 2015, at the same hour, that's more 36,000 voters.

In this case, my 52% turnout estimate makes more sense.

Maybe 5.5 million votes cast, out of 10.8 million registered voters.

[Tender Branson]

If you exclude the 1.46 million foreign "voters", it's only 9.35 million eligible in Portugal.

If there are 5.4 million votes in Portgual (+100.000 abroad), turnout in Portugal mainland would be 58%.

[Tender Branson]

Is there another turnout update or just the vote count when polls close ?

[Tender Branson]

Overall turnout will probably fall bellow 50% when the overseas votes are counted. Yikes.

Yes.

5.2 million votes out of 10.81 registered.

48% turnout.

Anyway, the results are mostly what the polls showed and unlike the 2 big parties, similar to my prediction. The close race did not happen.

[Tender Branson]

Overseas voting surpasses 130,000.

On Wednesday, overseas ballots will be counted and award the final 4 seats left in Parliament. Votes are still arriving to the Electoral Commission. Until now, 132,989 ballots have arrived, but it's still unclear if all of them will be considered valid. We'll see.

No.

Many are postmarked with Oct. 7, are missing signatures or are damaged.

That happens here as well.

Maybe 130.000 or so will be valid.