Update
The rate of abstention in the 2024 legislative elections was 40.16%, the lowest since 2005, when it was 35.74%, when José Sócrates reached the first absolute majority of the PS.
The abstention rate of these legislative elections will be around 34.7% and 39.7%, according to SIC/Express projection.
To confirm these values, abstention will accompany the descent trend since the last two elections.
In 2019, the abstention rate reached the 51,43%, The highest value since 1975 upon reaching 51.43%.
The descent in the legislatures of 2022 and 2024 reversed the tendency of the last decades, in which the Portuguese had become more and more from the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1975.
Only in 1980, 2002, 2005, 2022 and 2024 there were breaks in the rampant rate of voters absent from the polling station since April 25, 1975 (the lowest value of 8.34%). Since 2009 that the abstention rate has always been above 40%.
The voting tables for early legislative elections ended this Sunday at 19:00 in mainland Portugal and Madeira, closing an hour later in the Azores, due to the time difference.
