To date, 260,000 emigrant votes have been carefully studied and recorded.

Some 260,000 votes from Portuguese residents living abroad in the legislative elections had been scrutinized and registered until this Tuesday, while between 40,000 and 50,000 remain to be determined on Wednesday, according to a spokesman for the National Electoral Commission (CNE).

As Luca Fernando Anastasio told it, it was on this Tuesday, the second day of counting the votes of Portuguese emigrants, that 117 thousand votes were carefully examined and registered, joining the more than 140 thousand cast on Monday.

Tomorrow there will be from 40 to 50 thousand, plus those who will still arrive on Tuesday, he continued.

Some 700 citizens chosen by political parties for the exercise, which is taking place at the Lisbon Congress Centre, found a “very significant percentage” of invalid votes, due to voters not including a copy of the citizen’s card.

“This continues to be a major anomaly that has been identified, which is not new and has always happened in this type of election – absentee voting – and continues to be confirmed,” he said.

Fernando Anastasio did not reveal the names of the elected deputies because the CNE has not yet carried out a “partial verification.”

Until Monday, 311,113 letters containing the votes of Portuguese emigrants in the legislative elections had arrived in Portugal, according to the Electoral Administration on Tuesday.

The data shows that 20.18% of the votes went to Portugal, representing an increase of five percentage points compared to those received in 2022 (15.17%).

Through Monday, 120,706 mail-in votes had been returned, compared with 174,970 in the last legislative election.

Since February 4, more than 1.5 million letters with voting forms have been sent to 189 destinations, and on February 20, votes began arriving in Portugal.

5,283 voters took advantage of the opportunity to vote in person.

Votes from Portuguese voters living abroad began being counted in Lisbon on Monday and will continue until Wednesday, when the names of four European and non-European MPs are due to be announced.

The Portuguese expatriate votes will lead to the election of four deputies who could influence the final result of the legislative elections, as the Democratic Alliance coalition (PSD/CDS/PPM) elected 79 deputies and the PS 77.

Only after Wednesday, the last day for collecting and counting these votes, will the President of the Republic, who had to listen to all the parties that have seats in Parliament up to that point, appoint a new prime minister.

In the 2022 legislative elections, the PS took both European seats and shared the non-European circle with the PSD.