The National Police has indications that behind the avalanche of requests to vote by mail in Melilla is a corrupt plot that has offered 100 euros in exchange for each vote for the next elections on 28-M, according to sources from the investigation. The vanguard. In order to avoid electoral fraud, the Electoral Board has moved a file agreeing that all those citizens who have requested suffrage by post must identify themselves with their ID at the Post Office where they intend to deliver their ballot.
They are not the first elections in Melilla in which the suspicion of fraud in voting by mail flies over. But on this occasion, the number of requests set off all the alarms. Applications have more than doubled, reaching —to date— up to 19.94% of the census, while the national average is 2.84%. According to Interior data, 11,002 people have asked to vote by post. In the last regional elections, held in 2019, 34,393 people voted in Melilla, 63.4% of the electoral census.
The system, regulated equally throughout the territory, requires the voter to identify himself with the DNI when he receives the documentation from the postman. However, you can then delegate someone else to deliver your ballot to the Post Office. That same person can even deliver several ballots. And that is what the extraordinary decision taken by the Electoral Board will avoid: the citizen will have to identify himself again when casting his vote.
Before this measure was adopted, according to data from the Electoral Board itself, 704 people of the 11,002 who have requested it have cast their vote. Great surveillance is being carried out for the rest of the votes that could be cast at the Post Office. There are agents of the National Police at the Post Office in Melilla. And to prevent possible fraudulent votes from ending up in branches on the Peninsula, agents from the Civil Guard are carrying out surveillance tasks in ports and airports, in case they detect any citizen who intends to travel to the peninsula with wads of envelopes with their ballots. . In addition, as La Vanguardia has learned, the Electoral Board is considering requesting the DNI also from any person who intends to cast their vote from any point in Spain to Melilla.
In parallel, the Investigative Court Number 2 of Melilla is investigating the alleged network that has bought votes by mail. The ringleaders of this plot —which could reach political positions, according to police sources— entrust marginalized people to recruit vulnerable people from their surroundings so that they request to vote by mail in exchange for financial consideration, which could be around at 100 euros. However, the same sources specify that if a family contributes more ballots, they could take up to 200 euros for each one.
The cause, which is under summary secrecy, could reach dozens of suspects. According to the same sources, people close to political parties currently represented in the Assembly of the autonomous city would be at the top of the alleged plot.
