1876 Spanish general election

← 1873 20–23 January 1876 28–31 January 1876 (Canary Islands) 15–18 February 1876 (Puerto Rico) 1879 →
All 391 seats in the Congress of Deputies[a] and all 200 seats in the Senate 213 seats needed for a majority in the Congress and 101 in the Senate
First party Second party Third party   Leader Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Alejandro Pidal y Mon Party Conservative Constitutional Moderate Leader since 1874 1872 1876 Leader's seat Madrid Zamora Villaviciosa Last election 3 seats 7 seats 0 seats Seats won 317 48 12 Seat change 314 41 12   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Cristino Martos Emilio Castelar Party Radical Republican Leader since 1871 1876 Leader's seat — Barcelona Last election 20 seats 347 seats Seats won 6 1 Seat change 14 346
Prime Minister before election Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Conservative Prime Minister after election Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Conservative

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 electorate consisted of 3,989,612 electors, about 24.0% of the country population.^[5]

This was the first election to be held after the end of the First Spanish Republic in 1874. The Third Carlist War and the Ten Years' War were still unraveling at the time, meaning that elections were not held in some districts (namely, those in the Captaincy General of Cuba). The newly-founded Liberal Conservative Party of incumbent prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo won an overall majority of seats, paving the way for the adoption of the Spanish Constitution of 1876, which would mark the starting point of the Bourbon Restoration that would last until 1931.

The pronunciamiento—a military coup—of Arsenio Martínez Campos on 29 December 1874 put an end to the First Spanish Republic and hastened the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy around the figure of Prince Alfonso de Borbón, son of former Queen Isabella II. An interim government led by Cánovas del Castillo was confirmed by King Alfonso XII upon disembarking in Barcelona on 9 January 1875.

Under the Sandhurst Manifesto, the Spanish Cortes were envisaged as a provisional assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution that would re-establish the monarchy around the figure of Prince Alfonso de Borbón. The electoral law of the Democratic Sexennium remained in force, including the provisions for both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate within the 1869 Constitution, but not the 1873 amendments.^[6][7]

Voting for each chamber of the Cortes was on the basis of universal manhood suffrage, which comprised all national males over 25 years of age and in full enjoyment of their civil rights.^[8][9][10] In Puerto Rico, voting was on the basis of censitary suffrage, comprising males of age fulfilling one of the following criteria: being literate or taxpayers with a minimum quota of 16 escudos.^[11][12] Voters were required to not being sentenced—by a final court ruling—to disqualification from political rights, to afflictive penalties not legally rehabilitated; neither being criminally prosecuted with an arrest warrant not substituted with bail; nor homeless.^[13][14][15]

The Congress of Deputies was entitled to one seat per each 40,000 inhabitants or fraction greater than 20,000. 406 members were elected in single-member districts using plurality voting and distributed among the provinces of Spain and Puerto Rico in proportion to their populations.^{[16][17][18][19]} 18 additional seats were awarded to three 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]

All 200 seats in the Senate were elected using an indirect, write-in, two-round majority 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][23]}

The law provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated in the Congress throughout the legislative term.^[24] By-elections were not required in the Senate, with vacancies being filled in the next regular election of the chamber.^[25]

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.^[26][27] A number of positions were exempt from ineligibility, provided that no more than 40 deputies benefitted from these:^[28]

• Senior Administration chiefs residing in Madrid and with a yearly public salary of at least Pts 12,500;
• 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:^[29][30]

• The holders of a number of positions: presidents of the Congress; elected deputies in at least three general elections or in the Constituent Cortes; government ministers; the presidents of the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Council of War and Navy, and the Court of Auditors; captain generals of the Army and admirals of the Navy; lieutenant generals and vice admirals; ambassadors; members of the Council of State; archbishops and bishops; university rectors; presidents and directors of the six oldest royal academies (the Royal Spanish; History; Noble Arts of San Fernando; Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; Moral and Political Sciences and Medicine); inspectors-general of the corps of civil engineers; provincial deputy at least four times; and local mayors of towns over 30,000 inhabitants at least two times;
• 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);^[31] additionally for Puerto Rico, ineligibility extended to those having been convicted of crimes related to the repression of slave trade.^[32] 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.^[33][34]

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.^[35] The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election.^[36] 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.^[35]

The Cortes had been officially dissolved since 8 January 1874, following the coup d'état of Pavía.^[37] The election decree was issued on 31 December 1875, setting election day for between 20 and 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]

← Summary of the 20–23 January 1876^[b] Congress of Deputies election results →

Parties and alliances		Popular vote		Seats
		Votes	%
	Liberal Conservative Party (Conservadores)			343
	Liberal Conservative Party (PLC)			328
	Unconditional Spanish Party (PIE)			15
	Constitutional Party (Constitucionales)			37
	Moderate Party (Moderados)			11
	Radical Democratic Party (Radicales)			5
	Parliamentary Centre (Centro)			4
	Federal Democratic Republican Party (Federales)			1
	Independents (Independientes)			5
Total				406
Votes cast / turnout
Abstentions
Registered voters
Sources[38][39][40][41][42]

• Historical archive of deputies (1810–1977) from www.congreso.es, the official Congress of Deputies web portal (in Spanish)
• Elections in the Sexenio Revolucionario and the Restoration at www.historiaelectoral.com (in Spanish/Catalan)