Of the 265 seats held by the Senate of Spain in the legislature that has just ended, 208 are renewed in the general elections of July 23, 2023 through universal, free, equal suffrage, straight and secret, of all Spanish voters over the age of 18 listed in the census, a total of 37.4 million Spaniards. Approximately five percent of these voters are residents or absent residents in Canary Islandsaround 1.8 million, and will elect a representation equivalent to 5.3% of the total seats in the Upper House senators in Game.
Canaries they vote in the seven constituencies that exist in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands for elect 11 senators out of the 208 who are renewed in this electoral process, marked by open lists. Unlike the Congress, in which the constituency for the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands is the province, the territorial chamber attends to insularity and grants the two archipelagos a differentiated representation from the rest of Spain, the same as Ceuta and Melilla. So, the Senate has 59 constituencies instead of 52 like the Congress. The distribution is the following: 47 correspond to the provinces of the peninsular territorywhile ten are insular and, furthermore, there are two from Ceuta and Melilla.
In mainland Spain, where the constituency is the province, each one must elect four senators. Instead, the senators for the Canary Islands come from insular circumscriptions, such as those of the Balearic Islands. The distribution of senators is proportional to the population of the islands. Thus, the electoral law determines that the larger islands, in the case of the Canary Islands Gran Canaria and TenerifeThey choose three senators, the same as Mallorca in the Balearic Islands. The rest of the Canary Islands –Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, The Palm, La Gomera and The ironwithout taking into account the graceful– choose a senator each. With this, the provincial balance is broken and the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has one more senator, six, than the Las Palmas provincefive.
There are also five senators in the Balearic Islands, as one corresponds to Menorca and the other to the Ibiza-Formentera group. In the provincial constituencies, there is another exception. As already happens in Congress, there are two more constituencies that are given by the autonomous cities of Ceuta and melilla. Two senators correspond to each one.
Mixed composition of the Senate
The Senate or Upper House is a territorial chamber, and for this reason its composition is mixed, that is, it does not only depend on general elections. By universal suffrage and through open lists, 208 seats are elected, but there are more senators, who are appointed by the autonomous parliaments and, in this case, their number may vary from one legislature to another depending on the population. In the last one, they were 57 morebut in the three legislatures that passed between 2011 and 2019 there were 58 regional senators.
The Canary Islands have had three regional senators since the ninth legislature, which began in 2008. Previously, since the creation of autonomy in 1982, the Canary Islands had had two senators.
Open lists for the Senate
The mixed composition of the Upper House and the number of constituencies is not the only way in which the election systems for senators and deputies differ. The other difference is made by the open lists. While deputies are elected by closed listsdifferent ballots, one for each party with its candidacy, senators come from open lists, where there is a single ballot for all parties.
The single ballot presents the candidates to the Senate for each constituency grouped by party, but The voter has to mark in the corresponding box with an X the candidate or candidates to whom he gives his vote and they can be from different parties. In provincial constituencies, each voter can mark up to three boxes. On the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Mallorca, as well as in Ceuta and Melilla, there are two crosses that must be marked on the ballot. Finally, for the rest of the islands -La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Menorca and the grouping of Ibiza and Formentera- the mark on the ballot is reduced to a.
