120,000 foreign residents could vote for first time
Costa del Sol News, 30 | 12 | 2010 - Noticia
April 15 is deadline for registered residents to sign onto voter rolls
More than 120,000 foreign residents in Málaga province could vote for the first time in the municipal elections scheduled for May 2011, according to data presented last week by officials.
The vast majority of the potential new foreign voters - 113,000 of them - are EU citizens while the other 7,400 are from non-EU countries that have specific voting agreements with Spain, according to the figures presented by the government sub-delegate in Málaga, Hilario López Luna, and the provincial delegate for the Electoral Census Office, Antonio Requena.
There are currently 145,052 adult foreign EU citizens registered as residents (‘empadronado’) at their local town hall, meaning they are eligible to vote in municipal elections. But to do so they must sign on to the electoral census, which 35,740 have done - including 32,000 that had already done so ahead of 2007 municipal elections.
Foreign EU citizens who are registered residents can confirm at their local town hall whether they are on the voter roll, and if not can sign on to it. The deadline for changes to the electoral census is April 11.
For the 7,400 non-EU foreigners who are eligible first-time voters - including citizens of Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay and Peru - the deadline for signing on to the electoral census is January 15.