How do the elections work and how are the councillors chosen?

Each party or group standing in the municipal elections makes up a list of candidates equal to the number of councillor seats in the town. The total number of councillors depends on the town’s population. In the past, Bedar had seven councillors; this year, the population exceeds 1000, so there will be nine councillors, one of which will be the mayor.

On polling day, May 22, at the polling venue in the town hall, each party will have papeletas or ballot papers (which may have already been given to you in advance along with special envelopes) with lists of the names of each party’s chosen candidates. You vote for the party and not the individual candidates. It is essential that you do NOT tick any of the individual names on the ballot paper or your vote will be considered null and void.

At the end of the polling day, the votes are counted with the total number of council seats awarded proportionately. The party with the greatest number of councillors becomes the majority party with the number one on their list generally becoming the Mayor.

At the last elections in 2007, five parties were presented of which three got enough votes to gain councillors.

Now let us look at the results:

Total number of those who voted (Votantes) 474  (68,80%)
Abstentions 215  (31,20%)
Null and void votes 1  (0,21%)
Blank Votes (Votos en blanco) 2  (0,42%)

Candidatures		Votes	Councillors
PSOE	302	63,85%	5
LEVANTE SOS	72	15,22%	1
ANDALUCISTA PARTY	62	13,11%	1
PP	24	5,07%	0
PDEAL	11	2,33%	0
TOTAL	471	99.58%	7

The PSOE winning party received 64% of the votes cast. Their 302 votes translated into five councillors or roughly 60 votes per councillor. LSOS came in second with 72 votes and one councillor. The Partido Andalucista’s 60 votes also equated into one councillor. The first five names on the PSOE list went into the town hall with their number one, Angel Collado, chosen as mayor.