Expats have a chance to speak up today

"I know expatriates feel ignored by the local authorities but if more took an active role and voted in European and local elections, you could form a large enough force that you would have to be listened to," Hannan said during his visit earlier this month.

Figures released by the National Statistics Institute yesterday reveal that there are a total of 336,580 non-Spanish EU residents registered to vote in Spain and the largest community is from the UK.

In total, there are 82,552 British expatriates registered to vote across the whole country and the majority of them, if they vote today and also in next year’s local elections, would certainly make a force to be reckoned with, as Hannan stated.

Here in the Balearics, there are nearly 2,000 more EU residents registered to vote than at the last elections, while nationwide the figure is 16 percent higher than five years ago.

The 76,339 Romanians form the second largest community of voters followed by 36,760 Italians and 35,529 Germans.

To ensure that thousands of voters get to the polls safely today, there will be 530 members of the National Police, 366 members of the Guardia Civil and 249 Local Police on duty across the Balearics. But, the biggest threat this year is voter apathy.