• 28-M Results of the municipal and regional elections 2023
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The fifteenth general election since the Constitution was approved points to a record in postal voting, in which once again it will not be necessary to identify oneself when handing in the ballots. This was revealed by the investigation of the alleged fraud in the vote by mail in Melilla in the elections last Sunday, in which that weak point of the electoral system was taken advantage of.

This lack of control in the last step of postal voting gains strength when it is expected that the number of those who opt for this system will skyrocket. Until now, the maximum level was reached in 2016, precisely when the general elections were convened for an almost summer date: June 26. There were 1,460,131 postal votes, which represented 4.22% of the census and doubled the applications of the previous December elections.

The risk of fraud in postal voting was highlighted by the Supreme Court in the 2021 ruling in which it ratified the conviction of the leader of the Coalition for Melilla for, precisely, the purchase of votes. The magistrates affirmed that "the legal system easily allows its manipulation, mainly because the voter does not have to deliver the vote in Correos, since it can be done by anyone."

According to the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (Loreg) of 1985, identification is necessary to start the process at the post office. There it will be required "the exhibition of your national identity document" and "the coincidence of the signature" will be verified. Also the subsequent receipt of the documentation must be done "personally" and "after proof of your identity".

But the requirement does not extend to the time of delivering the votes in Correos. The possible incongruity of this omission with the previous steps of the process was raised at the time to the Central Electoral Board, which ratified that no identification was required.

Exceptionally, the investigation launched by the Security Forces in Melilla led the Electoral Board of Melilla to impose the obligation to identify oneself when presenting postal votes in the autonomous city. Subsequently, the Central Electoral Board extended the obligation to all deliveries of votes that were destined to a polling station in Melilla, even if the delivery occurred in other parts of Spain.

This obligation to identify oneself ended with the previous electoral process and does not extend to the general elections that have just been called. For it to be mandatory again in the July 23 elections, there would be two possibilities. The reform of the electoral law is already impossible, given the dissolution of the Cortes this Wednesday. The other is that again the Central Electoral Board sees sufficient reasons to order that identification be required when delivering the postal vote. In favor of this option weigh the various investigations underway for the alleged purchase of votes by mail. Against, these are isolated episodes that may not be considered sufficient to impose what the law does not require.

The electoral norm indicates that those who foresee that on the date of the vote "they will not be in the locality where they should exercise their right to vote, or that they cannot appear", can request the vote by mail "from the date of the call and until the tenth day prior to the vote". That is, the deadline opened yesterday and will end on July 13.

There are also fixed deadlines for receiving the ballots: "From the thirty-fourth day after the call and before the sixth day before the vote". That is, between July 3 and 17. If you do not know where you are going to be on July 23, you must know at least where you are going to be on those dates, to indicate to the Post Office to which address you should send the documents. It can be the address that appears in the census, but also any other that is communicated to the Post Office, for example the usual one in those summer dates.

Finally, you must go to the Post Office to send your ballots by certified mail – although free of charge – "before the third day prior to the holding of the elections". So the last day to vote by mail will be July 19, although sometimes the Electoral Board has extended the deadline set by law. What does not change is that whoever has requested the postal vote will no longer be able to change their mind and present themselves on 23-J at their polling station.

PREVIOUS QUOTES

2016

RECORD. The 2016 general elections, which also coincided with the summer period (June 26), hold the record of postal votes cast: 1,460,131 ballots, which represented 4.22% of the electoral census. In the vote of the previous December, only 788,524 had done so, 2.28% of the voters.

2023

MAY 28. Correos reported that by 28-M 1,082,030 postal vote requests had been admitted, a quarter of them digitally. The figure represents 3.08% of the electoral census.

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