Under the
1869 Constitution, the Spanish were conceived as "co-legislative bodies", forming a nearly
perfect bicameral system. Both the
Congress of Deputies and the
Senate exercised legislative, oversight and budgetary functions, sharing almost equal powers, except in
budget laws (
taxation and
public credit) or
military force—whose
first reading corresponded to Congress, which also had greater preeminence—and in
impeachment processes against
government ministers, where Congress handled
indictment and the Senate the
trial. The electoral and procedural rules in
Puerto Rico were the same as those used in the
1871 election.
Date The term of each chamber of the —the Congress and one-quarter of the Senate—expired three years from the date of their previous election, unless they were
dissolved earlier.
Election day was held over several voting days: the first was used to elect
polling station officials, and the remaining ones were devoted to the parliamentary election itself. The
previous election was held on 8 March 1871, which meant that the chambers' terms would have expired on 8 March 1874. The
monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a
snap election. 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. In
Cuba, elections were indefinitely postponed due to the
Ten Years' War. In Puerto Rico, voting was based on
censitary suffrage, comprising Spanish males of
voting age who were either
literate or
taxpayers with a minimum quota of 16
escudos in
direct taxes. Additional restrictions excluded those deprived of political rights or barred from public office by a final
sentence, criminally
imprisoned (without
bail) or
convicted, and
homeless. The Congress of Deputies had one seat per 40,000 inhabitants or fraction above 20,000. All were elected in
single-member districts using
plurality voting and distributed among the
provinces of Spain according to population. Cuba and Puerto Rico were allocated 18 and 15 seats, respectively. As a result of the aforementioned allocation, 424 single-member districts were established. All 200 Senate seats were elected using
indirect,
two-round majority voting.
Delegates chosen by
local councils—each of which was assigned an initial minimum of one delegate, with one additional delegate for every six
councillors—voted for senators together with
provincial deputies. Provinces and the whole of Puerto Rico were allocated four seats each. For the Congress, the law provided for
by-elections to fill
vacant seats during the legislative term. For the Senate, any vacancies arising during the legislative term were filled in the chamber's next full or one-quarter election, with senators elected this way serving the remainder of their seat's original term. ==Candidates==