Brexit Limits the Presence of British Voters in Spain’s Municipal Elections

As expected, Brexit will limit the presence of British voters at the polls. Despite no longer belonging to the European Union, residents of the United Kingdom registered in Spain can continue to vote in municipal elections, but as was the case, for example, with Norwegians, they must expressly register before each election in order to exercise that right, even if they have voted before and no matter how long they have been in the country.

The National Institute of Statistics has already published the electoral census corresponding to 28M. And there are 11,350 British registered in Alicante who will be able to exercise their right to vote. Those registered are around a sixth of the residents of the United Kingdom registered in the province, but despite this they are still the most numerous foreign group, almost double that of the Germans (6,526), ​​and well ahead of the rest: Countries Netherlands (4,935), Romania (4,404), France (3,635), Belgium (3,395) and Italy (2,891). The natives of other countries that contribute a large number of neighbors to the province, such as Algeria or Morocco, do not have the right to vote.

Registrants are around a sixth of UK residents registered in the province

As explained by Juan de Dios Navarro, deputy responsible for the area of ​​International Residents in the Provincial Council, there are no figures that allow us to know how many residents of each country exercise their right to vote, but the number of registered Britons allows us to deduce that in their case will be significantly less. The Provincial Institution, in cooperation with the British Consulate, carried out an information campaign, but the tendency to isolate a large part of that community suggests that many of them are not aware of this new requirement.

The large colony of foreign residents makes Alicante the second province in Spain with the most foreign voters in absolute numbers, with 43,504, more than 10% of the total 415,118 foreigners entitled to vote in local elections. Only Madrid surpasses Alicante, with 63,187, but the relative weight over the total census is much lower, since the total number of voters is close to 5 million in the first case and barely reaches 1.3 million in the second.

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Enrique Bolland

Although in global terms voters of other nationalities hardly influence the outcome of the elections, the large concentration registered in towns such as San Fulgencio, Rojales, Llíber, Daya Vieja or Benitatxell, towns where they outnumber the Spanish, or their specific weight in towns such as Torrevieja, Orihuela or Alfàs del Pi, empowers them to tip the balance of municipal power.

And the influence of the British colony is unmatched in any other Spanish province, not even in Málaga, which has less than half the registered voters of the United Kingdom (5,165), despite the fact that there are many more than in Almería (3,012). , Murcia (2,116), Madrid (2,010) or Barcelona (1,910), which continue in the ranking.

The influence of the British colony finds no comparison in any other Spanish province, not even in Malaga

With regard to the rest of the Valencian Community, there is a community, the Romanian, which leads the number of foreign voters with the right to vote. In a very extreme way in Castellón, where the 7,708 Romanian voters are almost 80% of the 10,859 total, and where only France, Italy and Germany exceed one thousand.

In the province of Valencia, Romania is also the best represented country in the census, since of the 19,629 residents of other countries with the right to vote, 5,282 are Romanians, ahead of Italians (3,253), Bulgarians (3,090) and French (2,130). ).