The vice president of the Generalitat, Laura Vilagrà, explained this Saturday that in tomorrow’s Catalan elections, “for the first time” in Spain, all voting centers will have tablets to enter data from the scrutiny of each table and school, while until Now not all schools had tablets.
At a press conference this Saturday in the Parliament, the Minister of the Presidency also added that a drill was held the previous Saturday and it worked, although there are alternatives (telephone system) if the tablets fail, which provide much more agility and provide data in real time.
In addition to entering data on the tablets, the Administration representatives will also be able to enter a photo of all the official minutes of all the schools and tables, so “with AI it will be possible to check if there is any error in relation to the entry of data manually.”
4,800 tablets have been distributed to those responsible for the Administration who must enter the data.
There will continue to be a free website and app to consult data (Eleccions Catalunya 2024), where “for the first time” there will also be data by schools.
Those who will oversee all this data dissemination will be around 500 people from the Center for Telecommunications and Information Technologies (CTTI) of the Generalitat, in the Bital Space of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), which Vilagrà visited earlier this Saturday of the press conference.
There will be some 80,000 people involved in the polling stations (including substitutes) that will open on Sunday at 9: there will be 2,695 polling stations, with 8,940 tables, distributed as follows: in Barcelona, ??6,491; in Girona, 868; in Lleida, 547, and in Tarragona, 1,034. As for the tables, there will be a total of 80,460 members (26,820 regular members and 53,640 substitutes): 58,419 will be in Barcelona, ??7,812 in Girona, 4,923 in Lleida and 9,306 in Tarragona. 5.8 million printed ballots and 6.2 million envelopes will be available.
A total of 5,754,931 people are called to participate, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), 130,864 more compared to the elections of February 14, 2021. Of the total voters, 5,460,337 reside in Catalonia, while 294,594 voters are residents abroad and are registered in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA).
Of these, according to provisional data from the MAEC, 24,233 people have already voted, which represents close to 8.23%, “a somewhat higher percentage than in previous times due to not having the requested vote,” explained Vilagrà. Regarding voting by mail, 106,031 (1.95%) applications have been accepted, according to provisional data from the INE.
243,003 new voters are called for the first time in elections in the Parliament, after having reached the age of majority since the last electoral appointment.
Regarding security, up to 7,300 police officers will be mobilized on Sunday (more than 3,000 local agents and some 4,300 mossos d’Esquadra), in addition to municipal security guards.
They will cover all polling stations to guarantee the right to vote: 56% of these voting centers will be covered by mossos and 44% by local police.
The Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, explained that she and Vilagrà will appear before the press on Sunday.
They will appear around 10 to talk about the opening of schools; At around 1:15 p.m. they will give first participation data (based on data from 1:00 p.m.), in addition to 6:15 p.m. (based on data from 6:00 p.m.), and “from” 10:00 p.m. they will give provisional results, when they approach 100% of the scrutiny. .
Plaja has responded to questions from journalists about the guarantee of voting at the polling station at the UB headquarters, in Plaza Universitat, where students in favor of Palestine are still camped this Saturday.
The spokesperson said that, with general security throughout Catalonia, “there is no doubt that tomorrow the planned device will function as it should so that it works normally, without further ado.”
