Spain early parliamentary elections 2023: ODIHR election expert team final report

The 2023 early parliamentary elections in Spain took place in a competitive and pluralistic environment, with fundamental freedoms respected. The elections were managed effectively and the election management bodies enjoyed stakeholders’ trust. Nevertheless, a number of the technical aspects assessed by an expert team from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) merit revision. This includes the transparency of decision-making by the election administration, the legal framework for postal voting, and enhanced access for persons with disabilities to the electoral process. Voters were offered ample opportunities to make an informed choice, but disinformation negatively featured in the vibrant campaign, despite commendable efforts undertaken by the authorities to counter its spread.

These are some of the main conclusions of the final report on the 23 July elections published by ODIHR on 23 February 2024. The ODIHR expert team specifically focused on the practical implementation of the amended electoral legal framework, the conduct of electoral operations, in particular postal voting, and the conduct of the campaign, including on social networks. The report does not offer an overall assessment of the electoral process.

The report offers 10 recommendations to support efforts to bring them in line with OSCE commitments, as well as other international obligations and standards for democratic elections.

Recommendations include:

• Ensuring effectiveness and consistency in the implementation of polling procedures by providing mandatory training;
• Making gender-disaggregated data about the election administration and process available;
• Holding open election commissions meetings and making decisions publicly available to increase transparency;  
• Enhancing accessibility of the entire electoral process for persons with different types of disabilities;
• Providing for legal certainty by introducing changes that are foreseen in the law;
• Enhancing the transparency and integrity of the electoral process, including by publishing disaggregated election results;
• Reinforcing the secrecy of the vote, including by amending the layout of the polling stations;
• Strengthening efforts to pre-emptively address potential misuse of administrative resources;
• Continuing ongoing efforts to counter disinformation.

The ODIHR expert team also assessed the country’s efforts to implement previous recommendations through changes in legislation, procedures and practices. The observers evaluated the follow-up to recommendations from the 2019 and the 2015 parliamentary elections, and concluded that two recommendations had been fully implemented, another five mostly implemented and three partially addressed, while others are still outstanding.

ODIHR deployed an Election Expert Team for these elections from 12 to 28 July. All 57 countries across the OSCE region have formally committed to follow up promptly on ODIHR’s election assessments and recommendations.