The polling stations, for the second elections in three months, have been open since 8 am and will close at 7 pm in mainland Portugal and Madeira, while in the Azores they open and close an hour later in relation to Lisbon time, due to the time difference.

According to the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a total of 10,819,317 national citizens and 11,255 foreign citizens are registered on the electoral roll for today's elections, making a total of 10,830,572 voters.

Around 1.5 million Portuguese voters are registered abroad, of which just over 900 thousand vote within Europe and 643 thousand are registered outside the European continent.

In these elections, due to the existence of decentralised electoral registers, voters will be able to vote anywhere in the country, that is, without having to inform in advance or register to vote outside their usual polling station, simply by presenting their ID card.

In Portugal, more than 252,000 voters, 17 parties and coalitions are competing in these European elections, for which they registered to vote in advance last Sunday.

In 2019, in the previous European elections, Portugal recorded the worst abstention rate (68.6%) since joining the European Union, in contrast to participation in Europe - around 50%.

In addition to the regional elections in the Azores and Madeira, these are the second national elections in Portugal this year, after the early legislative elections of March 10, called following the resignation of the then prime minister, António Costa (PS), after it was made public that it was the subject of a judicial inquiry.

Between Thursday and today, around 373 million European voters in the 27 Member States of the European Union elect the 720 new members of the European Parliament.