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Challenges to the Electoral Census during the electoral period

Organic Law 2/2011 of 28 January has established in the new wording of article 38.2 of Organic Law 5/1985 of 19 June on the General Electoral System (LOREG, for its acronym in Spanish) that “representatives of candidatures or representatives of parties, federations and coalitions may challenge the census of districts which have registered a significant and unjustified increase in the number of residents which has given rise to the communication referred to in article 30(c), within five days from the date on which they became aware of the said communication”.

On the other hand, article 30(c) of the LOREG establishes that the Electoral Census Office “controls and reviews ex officio the registrations and de-registrations processed by the competent bodies and prepares a national voter file, communicating to the Central Electoral Board the results of the reports, inspections and, where appropriate, files that it may have initiated with regard to modifications in the census of the districts that have determined a significant and unjustified alteration in the number of residents”.

Finally, the aforementioned Organic Law 2/2011, in the new wording given to article 39.4 of the LOREG, has recognized the power to challenge the representatives of the candidatures of the districts that in the previous six months have registered a significant and unjustified increase of residents that has given rise to the communication referred to in article 30(c) of the LOREG.

Once an electoral process has been called, within six days from the date of publication of the call for elections, the Electoral Census Office shall publish in the corresponding Provincial Official Gazette the list of municipalities or smaller local entities that in the six months prior to the call for elections have registered a significant and unjustified increase in the number of residents, which has given rise to the communication to the Central Electoral Board provided for in article 30(c) of the LOREG.

The complete list of these municipalities shall also be included, within the same period of time, on the website of the Electoral Census Office, in a specific section dedicated to this purpose.

This list should include those local entities that have not responded to the requests for clarification from the Electoral Census Office in the last six months, as well as those in which said response is unsatisfactory, in which case they should briefly explain the reasons for this lack of compliance. The list shall not include the municipalities in which, having given rise at the time to the communication to the Central Electoral Board provided for in the aforementioned article 30(c), the causes that led to it have disappeared.

The Central Electoral Board, on the proposal of the Electoral Census Office, shall approve the statistical criteria used to determine the significant nature of the increase in the number of residents in a local entity, which shall be published on the website of the Electoral Census Office. The criteria used in the last six months are included in the annex.

The representatives of the candidatures may challenge before the Electoral Census Office the census of the local entities included in the list indicated in the previous point, by means of an administrative complaint, during a period of eight days, starting from the sixth day following the call for elections, as established in article 39, paragraph 4, of the LOREG.

Complaints shall be submitted directly to the Provincial Delegations of the corresponding Electoral Census Office.

The Provincial Delegation of the competent Electoral Census Office shall resolve the complaints submitted within a period of three days and, where applicable, in the light of the facts established in the course of its actions, shall order the appropriate corrective measures, in accordance with the provisions of Article 39.6 of the LOREG, informing the claimant.

In accordance with that set forth in article 40.1 of the LOREG, an appeal may be lodged with the Administrative Law Judge against the decisions of the Electoral Census Office within five days of their notification.