Everything is ready. The ballot boxes and ballot papers distributed by the Canarian municipalities and the machinery in motion, we just have to wait for Sunday for the start of the European democracy party in which a total of 1,842,750 citizens from member countries of the European Union (EU) will participate in the Islands. These elections will see the setting up of 2,945 polling stations spread across 1,046 electoral venues in the Archipelago.
Spain will elect 61 Members of the European Parliament, two more than in 2019, in a single constituency throughout the national territory. In the case of the Canary Islands, and according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in the 2024 European elections, the Archipelago increases its electoral roll by 82,000 people compared to the previous competition – held on May 26, 2019, which coincided with local and regional elections – where 1,760,750 people in the Islands were called to the ballot boxes.
Now, out of those more than 1.8 million voters, including Spanish residents in the Canary Islands (CER), Spanish citizens living permanently abroad (CERA), and non-Spanish European citizens residing in the Canary Islands (CERE), there are 922,506 registered in the Las Palmas province, while the remaining 920,244 are in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where the number of non-Spanish European citizens with voting rights (25,777) doubles that of the eastern province (12,634).
3,000 polling stations
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The votes will be distributed in nearly 3,000 polling stations spread across the 88 Canarian municipalities, where 8,835 individuals will serve as polling station members, assisted by 2,945 representatives of the Administration. In the Las Palmas province, there will be 1,569 polling stations spread across 511 venues, while in Santa Cruz de Tenerife there are 1,376 polling stations and 535 electoral venues, with the same distribution: one Administration representative and three members for each station.
For the transmission of data from the polling stations in the Canary Islands, a total of 1,154 electronic devices have been distributed, with 575 in the Las Palmas province and 579 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Regarding the security operation, the Ministry of the Interior has planned to deploy a total of 4,301 officers in the Archipelago to ensure the smooth running of the election day: 1,958 from the National Police, 1,753 from the Civil Guard, 67 from the Canarian Police, and 523 from the Local Police. They may also receive additional support from operational officers on June 9 for the usual security tasks in the islands.
The Government Delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, emphasized this morning that this is a very important process because the European Parliament is the first “transnational, supranational” parliament in the world with effective legislative powers and budget approval.
