A general election was held in Spain from Thursday, 20 January to Sunday, 23 January 1876, to elect the members of the Constituent Cortes in the Restoration period. 406 of 424 seats in the Congress of Deputies and all 200 seats in the Senate were up for election. In the Canary Islands the election was held from 28 to 31 January, in Puerto Rico it was held from 15 to 18 February, and in Cuba it was indefinitely postponed.[a][3] On 5 April 1877, another election to the Senate was held.[4]
The Congress of Deputies was entitled to one member per each 40,000 inhabitants or fraction greater than 20,000. Seats were allocated to single-member districts—406 for the 1876 election—distributed among the provinces of Spain and Puerto Rico in proportion to their populations, and elected using plurality voting.[16][17][18][19] 18 additional seats were awarded to multi-member constituencies in the island of Cuba, where elections (as well as the updating of district divisions to comply with the new electoral law) were indefinitely postponed due to the military situation.[2][20]
For the Senate, 200 seats were elected using an indirect, write-in, two-roundmajority voting system. Voters in each local council elected delegates—equivalent in number to one-sixth of the councillors, with an initial minimum of one—who, together with provincial deputies, would in turn vote for senators. Each province, as well as the whole of Puerto Rico, was allocated four seats.[19][21][22]
The law provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated in the Congress throughout the legislative term.[23] By-elections were not required in the Senate, with vacancies being filled in the next regular election of the chamber.[24]
Eligibility
For the Congress, Spanish citizens with the legal capacity to vote could run for election, provided that they were not holders of government-appointed offices.[25][26] A number of positions were exempt from ineligibility, provided that no more than 40 deputies benefitted from these:[27]
Senior Administration chiefs residing in Madrid and with a yearly public salary of at least Pts12,500;
The holders of a number of positions: government ministers; general officers of the Army and Navy based in Madrid; the president and chamber presidents of the territorial court of Madrid; the rector and full professors of the Central University of Madrid; and first-class inspectors-general and chief engineers with residence in Madrid and a two-year seniority in office.
For the Senate, eligibility was limited to Spanish citizens over 40 years of age and in full enjoyment of their civil rights, provided that they belonged or had belonged to one of the following categories:[28][29]
Provided two prior years of service: members of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Council of War and Navy, and the Court of Auditors; plenipotentiaries; and full professors;
The 50 largest taxpayers by territorial contribution, and the 20 largest by industrial and trade subsidy, in each province.
Other causes of ineligibility for both chambers were imposed on territorial-level officers in government bodies and institutions—during their tenure of office and up to three months after their dismissal—in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction; contractors of public works or services; tax collectors and their guarantors; and debtors of public funds (including their substitutes or jointly liable parties);[30] additionally for Puerto Rico, ineligibility extended to those having been convicted of crimes related to the repression of slave trade.[31] Incompatibility provisions extended to the impossibility of simultaneously holding the positions of deputy, senator, provincial deputy and local councillor, as well as serving by two or more parliamentary constituencies.[32][33]
Election date
The term of each chamber of the Cortes—the Congress and one-quarter of the Senate—expired three years from the date of their previous election, unless they were dissolved earlier.[34] The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election.[35] Only elections to renew one-quarter of the Senate were constitutionally required to be held concurrently with elections to the Congress, though the former could be renewed in its entirety in the case that a full dissolution was agreed by the monarch.[34]
The Cortes had been officially dissolved since 8 January 1874, following the coup d'état of Pavía.[36] The election decree was issued on 31 December 1875, setting the election dates from 20 to 23 January 1876 in peninsular Spain, from 28 to 31 January in the Canary Islands and from 15 to 18 February in Puerto Rico, and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 15 February.[6]
1 2 Elections in Cuba were indefinitely postponed due to the outbreak of the Ten Years' War, resulting in the vacancy of the 18 seats allocated to the island.[1][2]
↑ In the Canary Islands, the election was held from 28 to 31 January 1876. In Puerto Rico, it was held from 15 to 18 February 1876.
1 2 Decree of 1 April (1871), explanatory statement: "On the island of Cuba, the work of preparing electoral lists was hampered by the state of war that prevailed there and the necessary replacement of the electoral districts established by the decree, now law, of 14 December 1868, with new districts. [Spanish: En la isla de Cuba embarazaron los trabajos de formación de las listas electorales el estado de guerra que allí se sostiene y la precisa sustitución por nuevos distritos de las circunscripciones de elección establecidos por el decreto, hoy ley, de 14 de diciembre de 1868.]".
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