AEGEE Election Observation Mission to Spain presents first findings
On December 16, AEGEE-Europe deployed a 25-member Election Observation Mission (EOM) to monitor the Spanish General Elections of 20 December 2015, with a special focus on youth participation. Headquartered in Madrid, observer teams were deployed to Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Seville, Valencia, and Vigo.
The AEGEE Mission witnessed a strong use of social media in political campaigning. All parties were pressured to open up and tailor campaigns to young voters between 18 and 29 years of age. The leaders of the main political parties have made an effort to mobilise young voters. Both through social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and online media they brought the campaign closer to the public. The two main traditional parties’ status quo has been challenged by new political parties, such as Podemos and Ciudadanos.
Another way the political parties aimed to attract young voters was by selecting younger candidates. In comparison to previous elections, more young candidates ran, specifically in bigger cities and as part of the new parties. This was especially tangible as several parties nominated comparably young frontrunners.
Meanwhile, the newly established procedures for overseas voters have been criticised for excluding many voters. 47% youth unemployment¹ has precipitated a high number of young Spaniards moving abroad within the last years. For this reason, the new regulations affect young voters disproportionately. New procedures led to a more burdensome preliminary registration process for voters residing abroad. New rules, together with delays in delivery of ballots led to the electoral disenfranchisement of sections of these voters.
The AEGEE EOM found that although there is a high public trust in the electoral system, the Spanish voting culture raises concerns about the secrecy of voting. The observers noted a low awareness of the privacy of voting. A lack of secrecy when marking or choosing the ballot opens up the possibility of serious violations. Further action is required to prevent examples of proxy voting because of inaccessible polling stations and facilitate equal rights for disabled people. Apart from isolated individual cases of minor irregularities, the results of the elections were not disputed. The AEGEE EOM observed that in some polling stations, non-uniform counting procedures were followed.
The lack of uniform procedures regarding the access to polling stations for observers during opening, voting and counting opens up possibilities for arbitrariness.
Spain’s electoral law is silent regarding accreditation for international election observers and no standard procedure for accreditation is in place. This gap, already questioned in past recommendations from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), led to lack of clarity and inconsistent approaches concerning the accreditation of AEGEE observers by Provincial and Regional Electoral Authorities. This limits international election observation, which is at odds with OSCE commitments². While AEGEE observers were largely able to access polling stations, this depended on the personal will of the polling station coordinators or presidents of the mesas electorales. AEGEE observers were rejected access to a couple of polling stations because of lack of official accreditation and uninformed government institutions.
The AEGEE EOM was composed of youth from Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. All observers have been trained according to the methodology of the OSCE/ODIHR and have been conducting research on Spain’s political and electoral climate for the previous six weeks.
The AEGEE EOM to Spain is the 12th EOM since the beginning of AEGEE Election Observation in May 2014. The elections of 20 December were the second monitored by AEGEE Election Observation in Spain this year, after Catalonia’s Parliamentary elections of 27 September 2015 (final report available here).
AEGEE / European Students’ Forum is one of Europe’s biggest interdisciplinary youth organisations. One of its aims is to enhance Civic Education among European youth and foster democracy and cross-border cooperation within our continent. In compliance with internationally-agreed principles for election observation, AEGEE Election Observation aims to engage young people in electoral processes, enhance their understanding of the tools of democratic procedures and provide them with valuable experience as international observers.
AEGEE Election Observation will issue a full report on its observation within a month after Election Day.
For further information please contact Marije Arentze, External Relations Manager of AEGEE Election Observation, at marije.arentze@aegee.org.
¹ Eurostat Newsletter, 15 December 2015: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7091248/3-01122015-AP-EN.pdf/772e30b0-2308-45ab-a712-6b3039b632bb
² All participating States to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), including Spain, committed to grant access to international observers to monitor their national elections in the 1990 Copenhagen Document: ‘The participating States consider that the presence of observers, both foreign and domestic, can enhance the electoral process for States in which elections are taking place. They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to the extent permitted by law. They will also endeavour to facilitate similar access for election proceedings held below the national level. Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral proceedings.’ (Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, 1990, par. 8).