The last municipal and regional elections tarnished the image we had of voting by mail and the JEC, the body in charge of ensuring the cleanliness of electoral processes, is not going to allow it.
New measures in voting by mail
Taking into account that they have been fixed for the next July 23th54 days after they were called, the next general elections should have a high participation of the vote by mail as they are dates in which many will be on vacation.
First of all, you must request your vote online through the website or by going to any Post Office. Once you have made the request, your request will be sent to the Electoral Census Office (OCE), who will send you the necessary documentation to be able to vote by mail to the address you have chosen. It can be in the usual one, if you have not left yet but you are not going to be facing 23-J, or in a different one. Finally, you must deliver the vote at the Post Office. They will be in charge of taking the vote to the polling station that corresponds to you on election day.
The main change that these elections will have comes in the phase of exercising the right to vote delivering it to a post office. As reported by the newspaper El Mundo, the Central Electoral Board (JEC) is determined to take “additional measures” to end the controversy over voting by mail that clouded the recent municipal and regional elections.
Remember that the applicant has a deadline to deposit the envelope with their vote from July 3 until July 19, 2023during the usual opening hours of post offices.
Mandatory identification and registration
After the Board itself has detected a notable proliferation of hoaxes about voting by mail and its credibility has been at stake, the body in charge of regulating electoral processes intends to shield non-presential voting.
They will meet on June 8, where the processes to be followed will be defined in detail, but for now the newspaper knows more or less where the shots will go. The two most important measures What will be on the table at next week’s meeting will be the presentation of the voter’s ID when depositing the envelope at the Post Office and the creation of a register of people who deliver those votes, so that there is a final record of who casts the vote, as well as who casts it.
In cases where a person has an illness that prevents them from voting physically, or from going to the Post Office, whoever casts the ballot on their behalf should also be registered. Before, it was worth showing the ID to this representative when collecting the vote, but not when delivering it. All these additional verification systems they should avoid sowing doubts in an electoral process that should be clean and give citizens confidence. Precisely for this reason, the JEC has decided to take action on the matter to “give a message of guarantees and confidence in the system.”
