- A total of 80,189 people have requested the vote by mail in Catalonia
- The delegate of the Government Carlos Prieto “the coordination between administrations” to guarantee the functioning of the electoral day
May 25, 2023.- The Government delegate in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto, presented this Thursday at a press conference the device prepared by the Government Delegation in Catalonia for the local elections next Sunday, May 28, when 5,490,046 Catalans and Catalans are called to the polls. Prieto stressed that he has worked “with the other public administrations to guarantee the fundamental exercise of suffrage of Catalan citizenship.”
The voters must choose the 947 mayors and the 9,139 councillors of the towns and cities of Catalonia. In the province of Barcelona, 4,068,343 voters will be able to vote, in Tarragona 583,321, in Girona 535,257 and 303,125 in Lleida.
66,176 Catalans and Catalans have requested the vote by mail in person for the elections and a total of 14,013 requests have been received electronically.
For these municipal elections, 2,730 polling stations throughout Catalonia have been set up. By province, the distribution is 1,638 schools and 6,472 tables in Barcelona; 269 schools and 1,039 tables in Tarragona; 384 schools and 860 tables in Girona; and 339 schools and 575 tables in Lleida.
COORDINATION BETWEEN ADMINISTRATIONS
Coordination between the different administrations involved in the process is essential to guarantee the exercise of the fundamental right of suffrage of citizens. In this regard, the Government of Spain, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the municipalities of the different Catalan municipalities have worked together.
The sub-delegations of the Government will coordinate at the provincial level the different phases of the electoral process, as well as the relations with the different actors involved. At the state level, the subdelegations coordinate relations with the Ministry of the Interior, the Provincial Delegation of the Office of the Electoral Census and Posts. Outside the state sphere, they will be the interlocutors of the zone or provincial electoral boards and the municipalities.
The relationship with the municipalities has been carried out through the selection of those responsible for the electoral process, the supply of the material, as well as the creation and maintenance of a collaborative space where the different communications sent to the municipalities themselves and the necessary documentation to appoint the representatives of the administration will be recorded.
ADMINISTRATION REPRESENTATIVES
There will be the participation of representatives and transmitters of information that will guarantee the exemplification of the day. The representatives will have the main function of collaborating with the citizens chosen by lot for the composition of the electoral tables, as well as providing the transmitters with the data of constitution from 8 o’clock, the advances of participation at 14 and 18 o’clock and, from 20 o’clock, the data of the ballot. In Barcelona, there will be a total of 3,798 representatives, 529 in Tarragona, 478 in Girona, and 417 in Lleida.
In order to guarantee the correct development of the electoral day, a unit will be constituted, specifically in the different subdelegations, for these municipal elections, whose basic activity is to carry out a computerized monitoring of the entire electoral day, called the Peripheral Control Point.
LOGISTICS
Prior to the beginning of the electoral process, the specific needs for material that could be identified by the census were determined based on the material already available. 827 ballot boxes, 417 booths, 304 table signers and 175 school signers have been distributed at the autonomous level, which together with the material already available to municipal bodies and the Government delegation’s own warehouse of previous electoral processes, make up the total material needed for these elections.
ELECTORAL DEVICE
The electoral system has about 10,000 workers from the different public administrations, mainly from the General Administration of the State and the different municipal entities, and with the mobilization of 8,025 agents: 1,100 of the National Police Force, 1,160 of the Civil Guard, 3,891 of the Cos de Mossos d’Esquadra and 2,974 local police. The National Police and the Civil Guard will be responsible for the deployment of the anti-terrorist operation and the protection of the critical infrastructures of the state to ensure the normal development of the electoral day.
The delegate highlighted “the coordination that has existed at all times in the configuration of the security device for the electoral day” as well as the “remuneration of the agents of the different bodies, also of local police, for the essential role they play during the celebration of the elections”.
ELECTION DAY
The vote will begin at 9 a.m., although the venues will be open before the polling stations are set up to verify that there are no problems with the electoral material (ballot boxes, booths, signage stands, envelopes, ballot papers, papers that accredit auditors and representatives, etc. ). The vote will end at 8 p.m.
It has been several weeks since the electoral process was launched and, since then, the Government Delegation in Catalonia has been capitalizing on the whole process and ensuring the proper functioning of the device, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior and other State agencies, such as the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and the State Society of Post and Telegraph.