Elections

Under the absolute monarchy, elections were indirect and were held in accordance with Title 67 of Book 1 of the Ordinances. Those who held municipal office were elected as follows:

The good men (homens bons, local notables eligible for municipal office) and the people met in the Council house during the octave of Christmas. There, in the presence of the senior judge and the clerk (escrivão), each elector voted, orally and in secret, for six citizens, since this was the number of individuals whose duty it was to elect the members of the Senate (senado, the municipal council). From the record of the vote, drawn up by the clerk of the Council (escrivão da Câmara), the judges and the councillors (vereadores) chose the six citizens with the most votes. These were then paired off, two by two, so that each pair could vote for the various offices of the municipality (concelho). The electors could not be related by blood or by marriage within the fourth degree.

Once the lists had been gathered – three for each office – the senior judge, ‘reconciling them one with another’, drew up in his own hand the roll with the names of those elected, which he signed, closed and sealed. The names of those elected were then distributed among three ballot balls (pelouro), one for each year of the coming three-year term. The ballot balls, which were made of wax, were placed in a bag divided into as many compartments as there were offices. The roll and the lists were also to be kept in the same bag, so that at the end of the three years it could be checked whether any irregularity had been committed in the drawing.

The bag of ballot balls was kept in a chest with three keys, each held by one of the previous year’s councillors, and chance decided the order in which those elected to municipal office were called. The ballot balls were drawn from the bag by a child no older than seven.

The judges supervised the elections only when the corregedor (royal district magistrate) was absent or unable to act.

The royal decree (alvará) of 12 November 1611, registered in volume V of the Council Archive, laid down that the corregedores or ouvidores, when holding elections, should choose two or three of the oldest and most honourable persons, ‘zealous for the public good and of sound conscience’, and ask them which persons had the qualities to enter the offices of the governing body (governança, the notables eligible for municipal office), etc. Proclamations were to be made that anyone who canvassed for votes or tried to bribe the electors would be exiled to Africa for two years and would pay 50 cruzados towards the ransom of captives. Once the people had been summoned, they were to elect, from among the most noble persons and those of the governing body of the land, six citizens of the eldest and most zealous for the public good, and those elected were to vote for persons ‘without any taint of race’ for the municipal offices. In all other respects the electoral proceedings were to follow the Ordinance.

According to a warrant (provisão) issued in 1613 – almost identical to another published in 1803, and, like it, registered in the Archive of the Council of Funchal – the corregedor was to take up to three men of the oldest and most noble, whom he knew to be ‘of good conscience, zealous for the public good and natives of the land’. They were to name the persons who customarily served in the governing body, or whose fathers or grandfathers had served in it, and those who possessed the requirements to hold municipal office. The corregedor was to have ‘a separate entry made in a register, with all the declarations referred to above’, for each of these persons. Once the register was complete, the corregedor was to note in his own hand, in the margin of each entry, the qualities of each person, and then have the proclamations made in the manner already described.

The corregedor was to have the noblemen and members of the governing body appear before the Council to choose the six citizens charged with electing the councillors. Once elected, these citizens had to swear an oath ‘that according to their consciences they would vote for the persons who seemed fit to them’. The said warrant also contains some provisions on how copies of the elections were to be made and kept in the Council chest, etc., etc.

The royal decree (alvará) of 13 August 1508 laid down that the Council of Funchal should be ‘regida & gobernada por maneyra que se rrege a de Lisboa’ (governed and administered in the manner in which that of Lisbon is governed), that henceforth only noblemen (fidalgos) could be councillors (vereadores), and that the result of the elections, which were to be held every three years, should be sent to the monarch for his confirmation. Earlier, in 1461, Infante Ferdinand had ordered that the offices of the Council be filled by election and that two ballot balls (pelouros) be made each year, one for the judges and the other for the councillors and the representative (procurador). The captain-donatary (capitão-donatário) was to administer the oath to those elected, but without interfering in the electoral proceedings.

In 1471 a letter from the Infanta was issued requiring everyone to serve in the offices of the municipality (concelho), even if they held decrees of exemption, and in 1534 a fine of 20 cruzados was established for anyone who solicited votes or sought to bribe the electors.

John IV, by a decree of 6 July 1654, gave Funchal representation in the Cortes (Portuguese parliament), but a document cited by Dr Azevedo on p. 635 of his notes to ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) shows that as early as 1479 Madeira was already sending its own representatives to the Cortes. It should be pointed out, however, that our island is not included in the list of places that supplied representatives in 1535, which is held in the archive of the Torre do Tombo (national archives) and was published by Mr António de Sousa Júnior in the Censo da metropole. Nor is any reference to the election of these representatives to be found in the books of the Council of Funchal, although it was customary for the royal letters convening the Cortes to be sent to the municipalities.

Under the constitutional monarchy, Madeira’s deputies were chosen sometimes by indirect and sometimes by direct election. The first system was adopted in the elections of 1821 and 1826 and in those preceding the September Revolution; the second in 1822 and in those following the triumph of that Revolution. In 1842 indirect election was restored, and it lasted until the publication of the Additional Act of 5 July 1852, except in 1846 and 1847, while the decree of 27 July 1846 was in force.

The election of the peers of the Kingdom provided for by the law of 24 July 1885 was indirect, but the election of deputies was always direct after 1852. The senators provided for in the Constitution of 4 April 1838 were chosen by direct election.

As regards the local administrative bodies, after the restoration of constitutional government in Madeira the Councils were always elected directly by the municipalities, whereas the District General Council (Junta Geral) ceased to be chosen by indirect election only in 1878. The codes of 1895 and 1896 laid down that the District Commissions which replaced the General Councils (Juntas Gerais) should be elected by delegates of the Municipal Councils, presided over by the Administrative Auditor. However, the decree of 8 August 1901, which granted administrative autonomy to the district of Funchal (Distrito do Funchal), once again created a General Council chosen directly by the municipalities.