On February 18, 2024, the regional elections to the Parliament of Galicia will be held and voters who wish to vote by mail in said elections can still request until today, February 8, the certificate of their registration in the Electoral Census, via online or in person at any Spanish Post office to exercise your right to vote.
Since January 29, the provincial delegations of the Electoral Census Office in Galicia are sending electoral documentation to people who have already requested to vote by mail.
Voters can request their vote through the Correos website (www.correos.es), without having to go in person to a post office. In this application model, which avoids travel, interested parties must prove their identity through an electronic signature, accepting natural person certificates recognized by the Ministry of Industry and the electronic DNI (DNI-e) as valid identification systems. People who have requested to vote by mail electronically will be able to check the status of their request from the website www.correos.es.
The request to vote by mail can be made at all Post offices in Spain. This request must be made personally by each voter, except in the case of illness or disability – accredited by official medical certification – that prevents the personal formulation of said request. In this case, it can be presented on behalf of the voter by another notarized or consularly authorized person. At the time of making the request, interested parties must prove their identity by presenting the original National Identity Document, passport or driving license to the post office staff.
Both in the online and in-person application, you must indicate the address where you will be during the period in which the Provincial Delegations of the Electoral Census Office in Galicia send the necessary documentation to vote.
Once the application is submitted, if it is accepted by the Electoral Census Office, you will not be able to vote at the polling station on election day.
After verifying the registration of the applicants for voting by mail in the census, the Provincial Delegations of the Electoral Census Office in Galicia send the shipments with the electoral documentation (certificate of registration in the census, envelopes and ballots of all the candidacies) to the address indicated by the voter in the application, with a certified and urgent nature. These shipments have been made since January 29.
The postman or Post Office wallet will make at least two attempts to deliver this documentation by hand to the recipient himself, leaving the notice so that he can go pick it up at the nearest office if it has not been possible to deliver by hand.
To make the delivery, the Post Office staff will verify the identity of the voter using the DNI, Passport or Driving License and will note the number of the identification document attesting to the receipt of the envelopes and ballots with the signature of the delivery by the applicant. .
Once the Electoral Census Office (OCE) has sent the electoral documentation to the address indicated by the applicant, the Central Electoral Board allows the re-issuance of this electoral documentation to other addresses, as long as there is an express request from the voter. For example, if a person has requested to receive the electoral documentation at an address and has to leave before receiving it, they can carry out this procedure at any computerized Post Office office, and it is mandatory that they provide the registration number of the electoral documentation they want. reissue, and which can be obtained at the following OCE address: https://sede.ine.gob.es/ce-votoxcorreo/?lang=es_ES.
You can request that the documentation be forwarded to another address or to another Post office. In any case, it is important that the voter bears in mind that he must request said re-delivery with sufficient time so that Correos can send his documentation to the new address.
The applicant has until Thursday, February 15, to deposit the envelope with their vote in any Post Office throughout Spain, during its opening hours, according to the agreement to extend the deadline adopted by the Central Electoral Board that has been taking into account that February 12 and 13 are local holidays in numerous towns in Galicia and the rest of Spain due to the celebration of carnivals.
In accordance with the instructions of the Central Electoral Board, in this electoral process it is required that the voter personally deliver to the Post Office the documentation necessary to vote by mail. To do this, when casting your vote by mail, you must identify yourself by presenting your National Identity Document, passport, driving license, residence card or any other valid document that allows you to identify the voter, and the Post Office staff must proceed to verify it. .
People who requested the vote by mail but cannot go in person to the Post Office to cast the vote must grant authorization for the delivery to be made by another person on their behalf. The authorization must be signed by the voter and accompanied by a photocopy of their National Identity Document, passport or other official identification document, as well as a photocopy of the identification document of the person they authorize.
To facilitate the drafting of this authorization document with all the necessary data, Correos recommends using the authorization model that can be downloaded from the website www.correos.es.
The Post Office staff will not accept the delivery of electoral documentation belonging to another voter if it is not accompanied by the corresponding authorization signed by the voter, which must be kept, along with the photocopy of the official document accrediting the voter and the person delivering on his or her behalf. the electoral documentation, for submission to the corresponding Electoral Board.
Citizens who wish to exercise their right to vote by mail are recommended to try not to wait until the last day and to take advantage of the wide opening hours of the post offices.
In addition to the procedures directly related to voting by mail, the collaboration of Correos in the regional elections to the Parliament of Galicia also extends to the distribution of census cards and the sending of electoral propaganda, in addition, in some cases, to communications to members of the Electoral Tables, sending the census list to the City Councils, collecting documentation on election day, etc.
All of them are public service obligations that Correos is entrusted with as it is the operator designated by the State to provide the Universal Postal Service in Spain.
Correos is providing all the technological, logistical and human resources necessary to guarantee compliance with the commitments entrusted to it in the electoral processes.
Specifically, Correos will reinforce attention to citizens in its network of 2,388 offices throughout Spain, especially in the 166 offices in Galicia. Exclusive windows may be set up for elections and, if the influx requires it, additional tables specifically designed to manage voting by mail will be installed in the lobby.
In addition, the office network will have 533 PDAs, 74 of them in Galicia, to speed up customer service in the offices with the highest influx of voting by mail and an employee will be in charge of managing the queues, also serving with a PDA.
The use of the appointment system that is already operating in 526 offices throughout the country, 26 of them in Galicia, will also be promoted. In addition, in the offices where necessary, an option will be activated in the shift manager for “Vote by mail”, to prioritize attention or channel it to specific positions, all to speed up attention and reduce waits in the offices during the shift. electoral period.
Regarding the distribution network, it will have 50 additional PDAs, which will facilitate the delivery of electoral documentation. Likewise, transport routes will be adapted for sending documentation from the logistics center to all distribution units depending on needs. And the service will also be reinforced in all logistics centers, including the Lavacolla Automated Treatment Center (Santiago de Compostela) and the one located at the “Adolfo Suárez” Madrid-Barajas airport, for the correct management of international shipments.
For all this, Correos will formalize 450 reinforcement contracts throughout Spain. These people will work serving citizens in the offices, delivering shipments and taking care of logistical tasks in the affected centers.
