The Diplomat
The Permanent Commission of the General Council of Spanish Citizenship Abroad (CGCEE) announced yesterday that it has asked the Central Electoral Board (JEC) to extend the deadline for voting abroad – which ended this Thursday – due to the lack of ballot boxes.
In a statement, the CGCEE, which is a consultative body of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, said: “We are finding that the abolition of the “voto rogado” has had a positive effect on the interest in participating in our democracy, but the few ballot boxes in countries with hundreds of thousands of Spanish citizens are causing large queues that will increase in the coming days and will leave part of the citizens abroad unable to exercise their right to vote.
The CGCEE’s text was released almost at the same time as the Council of Ministers took note of the decision to urgently contract a service for the reception, storage, classification and packaging of electoral material (envelopes and ballot papers), in order to facilitate voting in the elections on the 23rd in Spanish Embassies and Consulates abroad.
The contracting of this service, for a total amount of 78,870.60 euros, was declared an emergency in order to comply with the provisions of Article 75 of Organic Law 5/1985 of 19 June 1985 on the General Electoral System (LOREG).
The aforementioned article establishes that the consular administration must guarantee the availability of official ballot papers in the voting centres that are set up, adequately publicised, as well as sufficient voting envelopes and the necessary computer resources for downloading the rest of the documentation required to vote during the days set aside for in-person voting.
The same article states that voters who choose to cast their vote in a ballot box shall do so between the eighth and third day, both inclusive, prior to the day of the election, delivering the envelopes in person to those Embassies, Offices or Consular Sections in which they are registered or in the places set up for this purpose.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges in the information provided on the agreement reached on Tuesday by the Council of Ministers that, as it did not have sufficient means to receive, store, classify and package the electoral material destined for the Spanish representations abroad before 15 July, the first day of voting in ballot boxes abroad, it was necessary to contract the service as a matter of urgency.
