Some 75,000 people will be called to participate as president, member or substitute in the more than 8,000 polling stations that will be set up for the elections in Catalonia on May 12.
This Tuesday, the Government approved the instructions for the members of the polling stations for the next elections to the Parliament, in which it details aspects such as the counting method, voting hours and the necessary material.
Each table will be made up of a president and two members, who will have to appear at 8:00 a.m. on May 12 at the voting point to constitute the table along with the substitutes (there will be two for each position at the table).
In the event of the president’s absence, the first or second substitute will replace him or her, and if not, a member will occupy the presidency and the substitute will cover the member. Each polling station must have, at a minimum, a ballot box, a voting booth, envelopes and electoral ballots.
Voting will begin at 9:00 a.m. and will take place uninterruptedly until 8:00 p.m., when the president of the table must enter the votes cast by mail into the ballot boxes before the members of the tables and the observers can vote. The scrutiny will be carried out “immediately and without interruption”, it will be public and can only be stopped due to force majeure.
Once the process of counting the votes is completed, the table will have to prepare the documentation and distribute it in three envelopes. The first two envelopes must be delivered by the president of the table to the court of first instance or peace, while one of the members must remain at the polling station until the third envelope is released, which will be collected by a Post Office employee. .
For their work on election day, the members of the polling stations will be entitled to compensation of 70 euros, and the presidents will have an increase of 10 euros, or 25 if the municipality has more than 500 polling stations.
The draw to designate the members of the tables will be held between April 13 and 17.
The City Councils, under the supervision of the Zone Electoral Boards, elect the members of the Electoral Tables and the substitutes. “The election is made by public draw, through any random procedure, among the people included in the list of voters of the corresponding table who are under 70 years of age and over 18 years of age and who know how to read and write. Those over 65 years of age can resign from the position, as long as they express it to the Zone Electoral Board that corresponds to them”, according to the information website https://eleccions.gencat.cat/.
Electors who turn 18 between the date of the draw and the date of the elections are excluded. The President must also have a high school diploma or a 2nd degree vocational training degree or, alternatively, the school graduate or equivalent.
“Two substitutes are designated for each of the people who make up the Electoral Table (two for each of the members, and two for the President). The person designated as a member of an Electoral Table receives a notification and a instruction manual,” adds the aforementioned website.
As stated on the Generalitat website on electoral processes, in addition to those mentioned by age, they may have a legal excuse, “as long as they present documentary justification”:
The website also refers to “ineligible persons,
people over 65 years of age, and any other person who has a justified and sufficiently documented cause.” And he adds: “the status of person who is a member of the Electoral Board is only lost once the corresponding Zone Electoral Board accepts the excuse alleged by the designated person”.
