Before telling you how to vote, let’s look at what voting is. The vote is a form of opinion that is given through the participation of the citizens of a nation; this becomes an act that is totally personal and above all that expresses a will towards politics; with him the rulers of every country are chosen; it is taken as a duty and a right of each of the citizens who have reached their majority.
There are different types of votes which can be public, verbal, written, secret and even gestural.
So then, the vote is an act by which a person expresses his preference or support for a motion, a proposal, a candidate, or various candidates as the case may be; It is a technique to carry out the making of different decisions, either in an electorate or in a meeting.
Here we will focus more on the political vote, but the vote is used in many things and in less complex and simple issues, for example it can be done in a school to elect the hall representative, in an urbanization to elect the administrative board, among others.
In order to exercise the right to vote, be it in regional, general, municipal or European elections, one must have reached the age of majority and, of course, appear in the Electoral Census records; to find out if you are in the latter you can check that your data is there; It is important that you give notices of your changes of residence, especially if you have moved from the municipality.
In Spain you can vote in several ways, in the traditional physical way, send it by mail and of course if you are living outside the country, register where you live; Let’s take a closer look at how to vote.
Electoral census
The first thing to know is if we are already registered in the electoral roll, whether it is from an autonomous city, a province or an island. When some elections are called and before they take place, the office in charge of the Electoral Census (remember that it belongs to the Spanish government) sends a census card to all those voters who are on the census, and according to the data that they have there, that is why it is important to notify changes of residence; on the same card appear the town, the section where you must vote and also the table where you must go to proceed to make the deposit of the vote; If there has been any change, it will also be notified.
It is not common for this to happen, but occasionally it happens that the census card does not reach us, that it has been lost along the way, or that it has reached us, but for some reason we do not know what we did and we lost it. Do not worry, remember that this is only an informative document and you will not need it to vote, you can also find out where you should go to vote and exercise your right.
To do this, you only have to access the INE page, because when elections are approaching, it enables a search engine that we can use to find out which is the center and the table where we have to vote; To check if you are on the electoral roll you will need an electronic certificate, but to look at the place where you must go to vote you do not need it.
When you access the search engine, they will ask you for various information such as the postal code, the address, what letter your last name begins with and your ID, the INE, which also issues a public document when there are elections, there you can find all the sections, tables and voting sites.
The day
On election day, when you go to the polling place, you do not need to take the card that was sent to you, but it will be essential that you arrive at the polling station with your identity document, ID, or in case that you can the passport, driving license, or a residence card of those citizens belonging to the European Union. Do not take a copy, it will not do you any good, you must take the original, even if it is expired.
In the table
Once you arrive at the table, you must present your identity document and the president of that table will see if you are on the list and then validate that you are there. In Spain it is common for the different political parties to send the ballots by mail accompanied by the official envelopes, so if you already have your vote ready they will tell you that you can now insert your envelope with your marked vote into the ballot box and later the voting juries they will mark that you have already voted, that you have exercised your right; If you didn’t have your ballots and envelopes beforehand, don’t worry, the polling place should provide them to you; You will find the political options you need and if you want to proceed to vote privately, there will be booths available for this, these can be closed with curtains.
You can only vote in the place and at the assigned table; The intervenors will be able to vote at the table that was accredited to them, as long as it is from the same constituency.
Schedule
The places where you can vote in Spain are called Electoral Colleges and the day is from 9 in the morning to 8 in the afternoon in a continuous day, the premises will be open a little earlier with the aim that the voting juries (table members) can verify all the material well, and also to accredit attorney-in-fact auditors, among others; There are people who may not be able to go to make a physical presence, they can choose the option to exercise their right by mail, let’s see in the next point how to vote by mail.
Absentee ballot
It really is not complicated at all, all you have to do is go to a post office and ask there for the paper you will need to be able to vote in this modality, you must fill it out and then go back to the post office to deliver it (it must be done in person). After this, all the ballots with the different options of the political parties will arrive at your house by certified mail, as well as the paper where your registration in the census is certified, you will still receive an envelope with the address and the table where you should vote (even if you are not going to attend) and an informative letter.
Read the informative letter very well, look at the instructions and according to this proceed to introduce what you need in the envelope and finally send it by mail, which must be certified, you must do it three days before the electoral elections. This must be sent to the polling station where you should go to vote.
Abroad
Those Spaniards who live outside the country also have the right to vote, since they are citizens of Spain, so if this is your case you can vote without any problem, although of course, there will be some steps that you must follow.
You must ask the Census Office for a printed application, which you must later fill out and then send it 15 days before election day, you must do it to the delegation in which you are registered in the country of Spain, you must also attach a photocopy of your personal identification (DNI), or passport.
You can send this to the Spanish embassy or consulate in the country where you are; There will also be countries where it is possible to go to cast your vote in a ballot box; this must be done personally; when a person permanently resides abroad it is called “CERA”.
There are also voters who are outside the country, but are not permanent residents. If this is your case, you must request the sending of the necessary documentation to vote at your temporary address; In order to make this request, you must be registered or enroll in the Consular Matriculation registry, there it must appear that you are not a resident. When you receive the documentation sent to you by the Elections Census Office, you can select your vote and send it again by mail, which must be certified, to the table where you would have to vote if you had been in Spain; when a person is temporarily outside of Spain it is called “ERTA”.
People who are in missions outside the country or who are at sea can access the vote through the variants of voting by mail.
Others
If the person cannot go to the polling place due to poor health conditions, they can process the vote through an authorized person before a notary or the consul.
Those who are visually impaired or blind have the right to request the so-called accessible vote, which will be prepared with the Braille system, so they can exercise their right autonomously.
The blank vote
The blank votes will be those envelopes that do not have any ballots inserted; also one in which a candidate who has already been legally withdrawn has been marked.
Null vote
It is one that is issued in an envelope that is different from the model that is official or that it is altered; also when the ballot inside does not correspond to the official model, is torn, altered or torn; It includes the one where the ballot is voted without its pertinent envelope and when it is not possible to determine what the will of the voter was.
In the elections for deputies, those ballots that have been modified, marked, crossed out or when the names of candidates have been added, or their order altered, or any modification such as the party symbol, will also be null and void.
In the votes for the Senate, those where more than three candidates have been indicated in the provincial constituencies and more than two in the insular constituencies of Tenerife, Mallorca, Gran Canaria and also in the towns of Melilla and Ceuta will be null, and they cannot be marked more than one in the rest of the circumscriptions that are insular.
Notes
- The electoral process is different in each country, so we tell you that this is more focused on Spain; For example, there are many countries where you cannot vote by mail and the ballots do not arrive at home either, you must go to the polling place to deliver the ballots or electoral cards (called that in other countries) and then go to the booth to mark The vote. The part in which one must certify if one is in the electoral roll can serve as a model, and also that one must look in advance at the place and the table where one has to vote so as not to have inconveniences.
- The conditions of the votes are not static, they can change as time goes by.
- This is an informative article, do not forget to consult the legal laws and the constitution of your country, where everything will be reflected much more clearly.