The great unknowns of the CERA vote: why is it so difficult for the result to change?

Pact calculators fume. The results of the 23-J elections have left a scenario in which, as is usual in Spain after some general elections, it will be necessary to agree to be able to invest a candidate. The sums to avoid a blockade that leads to an electoral repetition are very tight. As of today, and in the absence of talks between the parties, the most probable equation is an abstention by Junts that makes Pedro Sánchez president, with the yeses of Sumar, ERC, BNG, EH Bildu and PNV.

But all cabals may change in the next few hours. Although several days have passed, we still do not know the definitive data of what was voted on 23-J. The big question is: will the recount of the vote of residents abroad (CERA) change the result we knew on election night? In such a tight situation, a single seat move would completely disrupt the negotiations..

The Casa de Campo fair complex will be the scene of this last count, which will attract all the attention. Feijóo has assured that the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, had summoned him to have a meeting once the definitive data was available, including the CERA vote. Although from the Moncloa they deny that there is a commitment to start talks, the truth is that it makes sense to wait to find out the situation after the last ball of seats.

With the data left by election night, the territories where the transfer of seats between one block and another are most likely are Madrid, Girona, Tarragona and Malaga. But before explaining what can happen in each of them, we are going to clear up a broader question. Which parties benefit from the CERA vote?

More votes for the left in the diaspora

You only have to look at the last general elections to find a precedent. On November 13, 2019, three days after the elections that were repeated that year, the PP snatched a seat from the PNV in Vizcaya thanks to the vote of the absent residents. The situation complicated the investiture of Sánchez, who was precisely one deputy away from having more yeses than noes to be sworn in as president without having to seek the abstention of EH Bildu or Junts, which the Basque party finally ceded to him.

Although in this case the situation benefited the popular at times, the review of the history shows that in practically all the elections the left has obtained better results among Spaniards who reside abroad than among those who live in the country.

In all the general elections held since the year 2000, with the exception of those of 2004, the Popular Party has obtained less support from compatriots abroad than within the country. And the same has happened with Vox in the last two, where it obtained representation. The only exception in the block on the right was Ciudadanos, who did manage to convince more outside the borders than within.

If we look at the block on the left, the situation is opposite. Between 2000 and 2011, the PSOE always achieved better results abroad. In 2015, the irruption of Podemos broke with this trend, to the point that the purple formation was the most voted among Spaniards residing in other countries, with 31% of the votes over the vote for candidacies. Although this raised its final result from 20.8% to 24.5%, it did not help Podemos and its confluences to manage to scratch a deputy from another party. Also in 2016, the result of the CERA vote implied a change in the data of those who do not live abroad, but, again, this fact did not translate into any change of seats for Podemos.

What does the math say?

As we said before, the eyes this Friday are directed to four constituencies. In Madrid, the PP was left 1,749 votes behind the PSOE. In Girona, the PP is 363 votes away from seizing the seat from Junts. In Tarragona, the PSC could steal a seat from Junts and in Malaga, the PSOE is just over 3,000 votes from the PP. In addition to these, there are other provinces with seats at stake, but where the chances of exchange between blocks are less, although not impossible..

A smaller distance in votes does not mean that there are more possibilities, since the difference takes into account the total votes cast. In other words, a distance of 1,000 votes in Madrid, with a census of more than 350,000 voters, is less than one of 1,000 in Soria, where just over 7,000 residents abroad can vote..

But, in addition, there are more calculations to take into account and that further complicate the options that there are movements. The distance in votes that each party was left to achieve the last seat is a snapshot, but getting around it with CERA “is not so easy”, warns Raquel Villacampa, from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Zaragoza. “As the attacking party adds votes, so does the other party,” he explained by phone. The D'Hondt system means that, as soon as new votes begin to be added, the distribution is altered and it is not enough to overcome the difference that resulted on election night.

The expert provides several examples, for places where there may be change, on her Twitter account. This is how he summarizes a hypothetical case in Madrid: “If the PSOE gets zero CERA votes, the PP needs at least 1,749 votes. But if the PSOE gets 1,000 CERA votes, the PP would need 3,202 to steal that seat.”. “It is more complicated, but the numbers are what they are”, ditch.

And now, a real case. Let's recover the precedent of 2019 with the disputed seat of Vizcaya. The electoral night count ended with a distance of 163 votes in favor of the Basque nationalists. The following table simulates how this province distributes its seats. According to the D'Hondt system, the votes received by each party are divided as many times as deputies are distributed by the constituency. In this case, eight. The eight maximum values of the entire table are those that define which training is benefited. In blue, the eight maximum figures; in red, that of the applicant.

The figures, however, are provisional.. First, the corresponding electoral boards review all the documentation delivered by all the polling stations in their area.. Here the possible errors occurred in the communication of the data are amended. A few days later, the votes sent by the Spaniards abroad are opened.

The differences between both tables take into account both the addition of the CERA vote (the PP received 407 from abroad, compared to the 731 of the PNV) and the corrections of the Electoral Board. Despite the fact that the PNV obtained more votes, the final result was favorable to the Popular Party, which only needed 347 for the extra ballots for the 'jeltzales'. So each new vote influences the final result.

What happened in the most sensitive provinces

The Community in Madrid, where the PP has some possibility of adding a new seat at the expense of the PSOE, has a good handful of voters from abroad. In the previous general ones, those of November 10, 2019, there were more than 30,000. Then, the Socialists were the first force in this segment of voters, with close to 26% of the votes and an advantage of 1,284 ballots over the PP. But in five of the eight previous elections, the popular ones won in this constituency. And here the background is slightly more favorable to the right than in the country as a whole.

Meanwhile, in Girona and Tarragona the trend of the last calls has been more favorable for Esquerra —and Junts, in the case of the first—. Nearly 2,000 votes from these Catalan provinces were cast from abroad in 2019.

For its part, in Malaga, it seems difficult for the PSOE to snatch the last seat from the PP, which lacked 3,047 votes for the surprise. In the last general elections, less than 4,000 voted from abroad and voters from abroad preferred left-wing parties, following the national trend.

The icing on the uncertainty cake

As if the lack of certainties described were not enough, there is one more element that complicates the predictions about what real options each party has in this late battle for the last seat: participation.

In 2011, the PP, PSOE, PNV and CiU agreed on a change in the electoral law to include the system of the requested vote of residents abroad.. The reason: some complaints about irregularities in the voting of emigrants. Since then, those who resided abroad had to go through an extra procedure to beg for their right to vote. In the elections held that same year, it was possible to verify how CERA participation fell from close to 30% to just over 6%.. The levels have always remained below 7%.

At the end of 2022, this system was terminated to facilitate participation in the elections for Spanish emigrants. The factor of participation, unpredictable in these first elections without a requested vote after more than 10 years, will also be decisive in this last contest to achieve one more seat in the Congress of Deputies.