Participation in the general elections this Sunday stands at 40.48% until 2:00 p.m., according to data provided at 2:30 p.m. by the Ministry of the Interior. They are 2.56 points more than in the previous elections, in November 2019. On that occasion at the same time a participation of 37.92% had been registered.
"There has been an increase in participation, it is always good news" the Secretary of State for Communication, Francesc Vallès, pointed out without going into any further assessments, when presenting the figure from the National Center for Electoral Data Dissemination.
These data do not include voting by mail, which in these elections has set a historical record and is added at the end of the day. More than 2.47 million voters have deposited their vote at the Post Office for the 23-J elections, which represents 94.2% of the applications admitted, the highest ratio reached in a general election since 2008, the first year with approved statistical records.
Where they have gone to vote the most has been the Valencian Community with 46.24%, followed by La Rioja that registers 45.75% and Extremadura, with 45.16%. The latter is also where the vote grows the most, by almost 8 points. It is followed by Galicia, whose figure increases 7.05 points, to 39.01%.
In Castilla-La Mancha, 44.69% of the voters went to the polls and Murcia recorded a 44.24% participation. Next comes Cantabria (42.99%), Aragón (42.08%), Andalucía (42.05%), Castilla y León (41.37%), Navarra (41.27%) or Madrid (40.82%).
Below the participation average, located are Asturias (39.04%), Galicia, the Balearic Islands (37.27%), the Basque Country (37.20%) and Catalonia (36.79%).
There are three communities where the participation falls compared to the previous elections: Catalonia (-3.8 points), the Basque Country (-3 points) and Madrid (-0.16 points).
In total, 37.5 million citizens are called to go to the polls. They will not have major setbacks because 100% of the 60,314 planned polling stations have been set up normally, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. With all formed at 10.20 am, the last to be established were those in the Canary Islands, where schools open an hour later, and one in the Basque Country.
The big candidates have voted first thing in the morning. Pedro Sánchez has been the earliest riser, minutes after the start of election day.
