Nearly 1.2 million votes were not used to elect MPs

Nearly 1.2 million votes in legislative elections were not used to elect a single legislator, representing about one in every five valid votes, a study by mathematician Enrique Oliveira of the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) has found.

“We found 1,166,263 votes without representation in the country by adding up the residuals of all constituencies analyzed (20 corresponding to the national territory). This corresponds to 19.5% of valid votes,” indicated an analysis carried out by the Lusa agency in this second week. – fair access.

This study analyzes the audit of the legislative elections held on the 10th of this month in the light of the Hondt method, based on the preliminary results of the Ministry of the Interior, excluding constituencies from Europe and outside Europe, whose votes began to be counted on this Monday.

According to Enrique Oliveira, a specialist in dynamic systems, an example of the lack of representation can be seen in constituencies where smaller parties fail to reach the vote threshold required to win a mandate.

“In these cases, even if these parties receive a significant portion of the votes, all their votes are effectively thrown away. This creates a system in which minority voters vote without representation,” the study warns.

In practice, according to the professor at the IST Department of Mathematics, the way seats are distributed in different circles using the Hondt method can lead to different “costs” of votes for each deputy in the final composition of parliament.

“We can find mandates that require many more votes in certain circles than in others, as well as within the circle itself,” the analysis says, concluding that, given this, the PS was the “most effective” party for electing MPs in elections are this month and PAN is at the opposite extreme.

“The cost of votes for a parliamentary seat increases from approximately 22,857 for the most effective political force, PS, to 118,579 for the smallest political force, PAN, which has a higher mandate cost,” the study concludes.

According to the analysis of the results, the PS turned out to be the most effective party, since up to this point it had been elected in all constituencies, remaining with only 7.6% of its votes, having a conversion rate of 92.4% of the votes. according to blood pressure.

On the other hand, PAN manages to convert only 20.6% of its votes into mandates.

Moreover, parties that have significant support in terms of votes but are geographically dispersed across several constituencies may be completely excluded from parliamentary representation, while other parties with less support may be overrepresented due to the concentration of their votes in certain constituencies. studying.

As an example of this situation, Enrique Oliveira cites the case of the votes received by the AD coalition (PSD, HDZ and PNM) in the district of Portalegre, where the 14,132 votes received were not used to elect a deputy.

“The result of this force was 23.91%, since there were no elections of AD deputies, the remainder of this force was exactly 23.91%,” the analysis explains.

Chega had 14,915 votes and was elected as an MP, while the PS with 20,658 votes was also elected as an MP.

“This means that the Chegi forces made the most of their votes,” the study said, while the PS was left with 5,743 votes, a “9.7% remainder of the total votes (excluding zero votes). and whites) – 59,097,” the study showed.

“Please note that the record circles for the percentage of those remaining compared to their votes are Portalegre with 49.5%, followed by Beja with 48.4%, in third place is the Guarda circle with 38.7%, circles with three or less assigned mandates,” he states. .

Madeira “has a high percentage of the vote” (39.1%) thanks to the Juntos Pelo Povo party, which is a regional phenomenon, the study also points out.

According to the study, the main political forces lost – excluding the elections of deputies – more than 100 thousand votes each: more than 144 in AD, 132 thousand in PS, 103 thousand in Chegi, 124 thousand in IL, 155 thousand in BY, 107 thousand in CDU, 105 in Livre and 94 thousand in PAN.

The national average number of votes required for each mandate was 26,482 taking into account all votes cast and 25,605 taking into account only the votes of forces receiving mandates.

AD, with 29.49% of the counted votes, received 79 deputies in the Assembly of the Republic in Sunday’s legislative elections against 77 for the PS (28.66%), followed by Chega with 48 elected deputies (18.06%).

IL with eight seats, BE with five and PAN with one, maintained the number of MPs. Livre went from one elected representative to four, and the CDU lost two seats and was left with four deputies.