André Kosters / Lusa
Television projections are more optimistic than the figures from the first round, where abstention was 47.7%.
Television projections for abstention in the second round of today’s presidential elections indicate that it should be between 37.5% and 48%.
RTP announced an abstention forecast at 19:00 between 42% and 48%while projections from SIC and TVI point to a forecast between 37.5% and 42.5%.
The RTP survey was carried out by the Catholic University and the SIC and TVI survey by ICS/ISCTE/GFK/Pitagórica.
The first round of the presidential elections took place on January 18 and was the most competitive, with 11 candidates, with voted 52.26% of the nearly 11 million registered voters.
Data from the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration released at 4:00 pm showed that voter turnout for the election of the next President of the Republic was 45.50%, in line with what was recorded in the first round.
The abstention rate in the 2021 presidential elections stood at 60.76%, the highest ever, with Covid-19 and the automatic registration of Portuguese abroad contributing to this increase.
In 2016, in Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s first election, the abstention rate was 51.34%.
Polling stations opened at 8am today in mainland Portugal and Madeira for the second round of the presidential elections and closed at 7pm.
In the Azores, polling stations open and close one hour later than Lisbon time, due to the time difference.
There are, however, municipalities where the electoral act was postponed due to the devastation caused by the bad weather in recent weeks, which caused 14 deaths, hundreds of injuries and displacement, and left a trail of destruction.
More than 11 million voters Today they were called upon to choose the new President of the Republic, in a vote that pits António José Seguro against André Ventura, the two with the most votes on January 18th.
In the first vote, Seguro obtained 31.1% of the votes and Ventura, 23.52%, according to the general results tabulation notice.
