Correos wanted this afternoon to clear up doubts about its management of voting by mail and has assured that it has already made the documentation so that they can exercise this right at the disposal of 98% of the citizens who have requested it. According to the company’s statement, a total of 2,124,990 voters have already received the ballots, while 450,607 can go to pick them up at their post office, after the postal workers have made two attempts to deliver them by hand to the recipient.
Correos, a public company that as such depends on the Government, has been in the spotlight given the unprecedented demand in this summer call. More than 2.6 million have requested to vote remotely on 23-J, a figure that far exceeds the record so far, the 1.4 million requests for the general elections of June 2016.
With 20% of the workforce on vacation, the company has been forced to formalize 20,000 reinforcement contracts, although the unions have criticized that these were insufficient and that the employees were being subjected to an overload of work. This past weekend there have been extraordinary deliveries and a large number of offices in the country have remained open.
The candidate of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who directed the Post Office between 2000 and 2003, during the government of José María Aznar, has been very critical of the company’s leadership and during the campaign has repeatedly alluded to its alleged mismanagement . This same Monday he has insisted on sowing doubts: “I hope that no one in Spain is left without voting due to a problem that the vote has not arrived at their home”, the popular leader declared.
The Correos statement contains a veiled allusion to these criticisms: “We reject all insinuations or information that have cast doubt on the work of Correos professionals. They weaken our democracy, ”he claims.
According to official data, there would be only about 47,000 citizens to whom the ballots have not yet been sent. On Sunday at 11:59 p.m. the deadline for the census office to send all the documentation to the Post Office, once the registration of the applicants in the census has been verified.
Correos has until the 19th to send the documentation. If they leave a notice because they are not at home, voters can pick it up at the office until Thursday the 20th. It is the last day to cast the vote in an office, although Correos does not rule out extending the deadline. Due to the vote-buying scandal in the municipal elections in May, on this occasion the Electoral Board has ruled that voters must identify themselves with a valid document when they go to the office to vote.
