Not all votes have the same performance when it comes to converting them into seats. An electoral simulation carried out with the tool Objetivo 176 reflects this difference between formations: Podemos would need around 500,000 votes to obtain a seat in the Congress, while EH Bildu would achieve representation with approximately 45,000 votes per seat.
The comparison places Podemos as the formation with the most expensive seat in the analyzed scenario, and EH Bildu as the one that obtains representation with fewer votes per deputy. The difference does not respond to the idea that some votes have more value than others, but rather to the way they are distributed territorially and to the Spanish electoral system.
Why one party needs more votes than another to win a seat
The key is that Spanish general elections do not allocate the 350 seats in the Congress through a single proportional calculation for the whole country. The electoral constituency is the province, with the exception of Ceuta and Melilla, which elect one deputy each.
Each province is assigned an initial minimum of two seats, while the remaining seats are distributed according to population. This causes the number of seats at stake to be very different between territories: Madrid and Barcelona elect many more representatives than provinces with smaller populations, such as Soria or Teruel.
In addition, the allocation is carried out using the D'Hondt formula. In each constituency, candidate lists must reach at least 3% of valid votes to participate in the allocation of seats. After that, their results are divided by successive numbers and the deputies are assigned to the highest quotients.
This mechanism means that the national vote percentage does not automatically translate into a proportional number of deputies. A party can gather many votes distributed across the whole country and, even so, have difficulty obtaining representation in certain provinces.
Podemos and EH Bildu: two different ways of distributing the vote
The difference between Podemos and EH Bildu illustrates the effect of territorial distribution. Podemos presents a vote of a state-wide scope, distributed among different constituencies. If its support does not reach sufficient concentration in certain provinces, it can be left without representation there, even though it accumulates a considerable volume of ballots across the country as a whole.
For its part, EH Bildu concentrates mainly its support in the Basque Country and Navarre. That territorial foothold allows it to compete for seats in the constituencies where it obtains its best results, without needing an equivalent electoral presence in the rest of Spain.
Therefore, the abertzale party can convert a smaller number of total votes into parliamentary representation, while a candidacy with more dispersed support may need many more ballots to obtain a deputy.
The difference does not mean that EH Bildu’s vote has more legal value than Podemos’s. All votes are counted according to the same rules, but their ability to translate into seats depends on where they are cast and on the results of the other candidacies in each province.
The provincial system conditions representation in Congress
The territorial distribution is one of the elements that most influences the proportionality of Spain’s electoral system. In small constituencies, few deputies are elected and, therefore, obtaining representation may be more difficult for parties that do not concentrate their support there.
On the other hand, formations with a concentrated territorial footprint can obtain representation with high percentages in certain provinces, even if their vote percentage across the entire national total is low.
To this effect is added the D’Hondt formula and the 3% electoral threshold in each constituency. The combination of these elements explains why the relationship between votes and deputies can vary so much from one party to another.
A simulation, not an electoral forecast
The data disseminated starting from Objetivo 176 make it possible to compare the performance of the vote of the different formations within a specific scenario. However, they do not represent a definitive result nor do they allow anticipating how many deputies each party will obtain next November 29.
The tool itself warns that its calculations are simulations and depend on the data and assumptions used. Its methodology allows consulting the distribution of seats by provinces and observing how many votes a candidacy needs to contest the last allocated deputy in each constituency.
The comparison between Podemos and EH Bildu highlights one of the particularities of Spain’s electoral system: to obtain representation in Congress, not only does it matter how many votes a party gathers, but also where it gets them.