Policy

January 30 election, will Portugal make the ghosts vote?

&amp;NewLine;<p>If you live in Portugal and are at least minimally interested in the country's economic and political life&amp;comma; you know that on Sunday, January 30, legislative elections will take place following the dissolution of the Portuguese government initiated by the President of the Portuguese Republic on <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;vivreauportugalconsulting&period;com&sol;president-de-la-republique-portugaise&sol;" data-type&equals;"post" data-id&equals;"8474">November 5, 2021<&sol;a>&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>According to the newspaper Diário de Notícias&amp;comma; the emigrants' "negligence" and attachment to their homeland may be to blame&amp;period;&amp;nbsp&amp;semi;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<h2 class&equals;"wp-block-heading" id&equals;"election-du-30-janvier-le-portugal-va-t-il-faire-voter-les-fantomes">January 30 election&amp;comma; is Portugal going to make ghosts vote &amp;quest;&amp;nbsp&amp;semi;<&sol;h2>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>Still according to <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;dn&period;pt&sol;politica&sol;eleitores-fantasma-a-culpa-e-do-desleixo-e-do-apego-a-terra-dos-emigrantes--14530202&period;html" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener">Diário de Notícias<&sol;a>For years&amp;comma; the "dead" were to blame&amp;period; Now&amp;comma; they say&amp;comma; it seems to be the emigrants' fault&amp;period; The phenomenon of ghost voters&amp;comma; who number more than&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;a million this year&amp;comma; distorts abstention and can even "distort" the number of MPs per constituency&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>They "falsify the turnout"&amp;comma; generate "erroneous conclusions" and can "alter the number of MPs" per constituency&amp;period; This is an old problem that has been around for a long time and saw "particularly high values in the mid-1990s" writes DN in its January 27, 2022&amp;period article;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>At that time&amp;comma; "the number of people registered to vote exceeded the voting age population by&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;around 20 &amp;percnt;&amp;period; Since then&amp;comma; the percentage has fallen&amp;comma; but it almost always remains around 10&amp;percnt;&amp;period; It&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;s as if we could remove "this inconsistency" &amp;&amp;num;8211&amp;semi; "overestimation" &amp;&amp;num;8211&amp;semi; of abstention figures&amp;comma; and look at a situation closer to reality &amp;colon; the 51&amp;comma;4&amp;percnt; of 2019&amp;comma; for example&amp;comma; would only be 41&amp;comma;4&amp;percnt;&amp;comma; the 44&amp;comma;1&amp;percnt; of 2015 would be 34&amp;comma;1&amp;percnt;&amp;comma; and the 41&amp;comma;9&amp;percnt; of 2011 would represent an abstention of 31&amp;comma;9&amp;percnt;&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;vivreauportugalconsulting&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2022&sol;01&sol;election-987x1024&period;jpg" alt&equals;"election&comma; portugal&newline;" class&equals;"wp-image-8561"&sol;><figcaption>Source&amp;colon; Diário de Notícias<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>If we go back to the days when electoral rolls rarely eliminated the dead&amp;comma; it is possible&amp;comma; given the considerable numbers detected in recent decades&amp;comma; to look at the&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;abstention&amp;comma; for example&amp;comma; from 1991 &amp;lpar;which was 32&amp;comma;6&amp;percnt;&amp;rpar; and assimilate it to something close to or less than 22&amp;percnt;&amp;period; Or even envisage&amp;comma; without much margin of&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;error&amp;comma; that the 39&amp;percnt; of&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;abstention in 1999 was only 29&amp;percnt;&amp;comma; or even less&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>The closest picture to the weight of ghost voters&amp;comma; calculated for 2022 &amp;lpar;1,143,604&amp;rpar;&amp;comma; can be found by looking at the 2019 election results &amp;colon; these are almost as many&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;voters as those who enabled BE&amp;comma; PCP-PEV&amp;comma; CDS-PP and PAN to&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;elect&amp;comma; together&amp;comma; 40 MPs&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>João Tiago Machado&amp;comma; spokesman for the CNE&amp;comma; assures us that "what justifies this million 'ghost voters' &amp;lpar;an expression that&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;he doesn&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;t like&amp;rpar;" is the fact that&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;there are only&amp;nbsp&amp;semi;<strong>1&amp;comma;5 million registered voters abroad<&sol;strong> "when in fact&amp;comma; he says&amp;comma; "our diaspora population is well over a million and a half"&amp;period; And what&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;does this mean &amp;quest; It means that&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;a large part of our emigrant community continues to&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;use their Portuguese address for&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;registration purposes"&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>It&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;s an attachment to the land of birth&amp;comma; and perhaps a certain insouciance&amp;comma; a certain distancing from the census&amp;comma; he adds&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>In practice&amp;comma; he explains&amp;period; What happens is that someone who lives in Braga&amp;comma; for example&amp;comma; but actually lives in Paris&amp;comma; when you knock on the door for the census or send a letter, it ends up not appearing in the census records because nobody actually lived in that house&amp;nbsp&amp;semi;"&amp;period;a letter is sent, it ends up not appearing in the census records because nobody actually lived in that house, since the person actually lives abroad&amp;nbsp&amp;semi;"&amp;period;&amp;nbsp&amp;semi;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>This absence has an immediate impact on the final figures&amp;colon; "Abstention has erroneous values&amp;period; We have a margin of 10 &amp;percnt; which doesn&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;t exist&amp;comma; which ends up not being real because people don't live where he says they live&amp;period; "João Tiago Machado believes that this margin should be "removed from the accounts"&amp;comma; for a better reading&amp;comma; "in order to&amp;rsquo&amp;semi;have an exact notion of reality&amp;comma; a more faithful portrait&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>For Marina Costa Lobo&amp;comma; PhD in Political Science from the University of Oxford and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences-UL&amp;comma; what is at stake&amp;comma; is "the quality of our democracy and the erroneous and distorted perception of the civic sense of the Portuguese"&amp;period;is "the quality of our democracy and the erroneous and distorted perception of the civic sense of the Portuguese"&amp;period; Another warning&amp;comma; this discrepancy could have "consequences on the distribution of seats by constituency and prevent a serious discussion on the reform of the electoral system&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;&amp;NewLine;<p>The consequence is unprecedented, as the researchers point out: distorted abstention and the real problem of representativeness in the constituencies&amp;period; And in the end, the abstention rate is gigantic and is likely to have consequences for Sunday's elections&amp;period;<&sol;p>&amp;NewLine;

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