The Electoral Board, contrary to imposing throughout Spain the obligation to identify oneself when voting by mail

The Central Electoral Board (JEC) rejected last week to extend to all of Spain the obligation to identify oneself in the last phase of voting by mail, that of depositing the ballots at the Post Office for delivery to the polling stations.

This is stated in an agreement of the highest electoral authority that responded to the request made before the Provincial Electoral Board of Seville by the Now Independent candidacy. The formation indicated that the fact that the regulations do not require that the person who deposits the vote at the Post Office be “the same person” who requested it “opens the door to fraud”. And that the investigation opened in Melilla was “proof” of this,

For this reason, it requested the Seville Junta to require the Post Office to demand the DNI or other official identification when depositing the ballots. Also, that the Security Forces be asked to investigate possible abnormalities in the data for sending votes in the offices.

The provincial board sent the query to the Central Electoral Board, given that the request extended to the entire national territory. The JEC's brief negative response maintained that the voting procedure by correspondence is “regulated in detail” in articles 72 to 75 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (Loreg) and that the modifications that are intended can be proposed “to Congress , the Senate or the Government, as holders of the power of legislative initiative”. This option is not feasible for 23-J, since the electoral call has caused the dissolution of the Cortes.

The request and the response were produced within the previous electoral process of 28-M, but the criteria set out then by the JEC makes it very unlikely that a possible request that in the next general elections be ordered that only the voter himself be You can deposit the envelopes in the Post Office.

In the case of Melilla, the Electoral Board did ratify that decision referring to the post office of the autonomous city, which extended to the votes sent to any of the polling stations in Melilla from any point in Spain. Then reference was made to the “seriousness” of the events being investigated by the Security Forces, which affected a high proportion of votes.

Notice to the European Commission

On the other hand, the Cs MEP Maite Pagazaurtundua asked the European Commission on Wednesday to take measures against the Spanish authorities to correct the vulnerabilities of voting by mail. In a parliamentary question, remember that the Supreme Court itself warned of the facility to manipulate it due to the lack of identification requirement when delivering the votes.

“It is necessary to take measures to strengthen the security of the postal voting process, such as the implementation of more robust identification systems and the strengthening of control and monitoring mechanisms for ballots from their issuance to their receipt,” stresses Pagazaurtundua..

The MEP considers that it is possible to incorporate a specific analysis of what happened in Spain into the next periodic evaluation of the rule of law, to identify possible deficiencies and provide recommendations.