Abel Losada highlights the crucial work of the INE in the celebration of electoral processes

The subdelegate of the Government in Pontevedra, Abel Losada, went today to the headquarters of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) in Pontevedra where he held a working meeting with the delegate, Alberto González Burdiel, accompanied by the general secretary of the Subdelegation of the Government, María Isabel Alonso. During the visit, he learned about the role of the INE both in the electoral process and in the renewal of the different surveys at the national eremu.
Abel Losada highlighted the intense effort during the last electoral processes, which will continue shortly to begin the preparation of the European elections next June. Alberto González highlighted the impact that digitalization had on the organization of electoral processes, especially when it refers to the elaboration of the census and the electoral lists that are sent to each table,. A technological advance that now guarantees “electoral Sundays” in which there is always an almost total normality. This respect informed that in the last Autonomous Regions only two specific census certificates had to be issued to correct errors at the request of the interested persons, which gives an idea of the quality of the census data. On the other hand, he explained that more than half a dozen modifications were processed due to name changes and also gender, since they were people who already had the updated ID card, but not the census card.
The deputy delegate was also aware of the preparatory details that guarantee the right to vote of the 138,000 people listed in the Census of Absent Residents (CERA) of the province of Pontevedra, to whom the INE Delegation sends all the previous documentation and then, with the ballot papers in a great logistical effort in coordination with Correos. He also talked about the impact of the exponential growth in postal voting.
The provincial delegation of the INE has 40 workers who are reinforced with 10 others during the electoral processes, in front of this volume of work.
Abel Losada stressed that Spain is an international reference in democratic quality thanks, in part, to the exemplary nature of its electoral processes. “We are two very few countries in the world where the results of the votes are known very soon after closing the schools and the results are announced on the same electoral night at the end and after a few hours,” he said.
On the other hand, Alberto González accompanied the subdelegate by the different offices of the staff in charge of the surveys that are prepared in the provincial Delegation of Pontevedra, which are those of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Active Population (EPA), Family Budgets (EPF) and the #hotel occupancy survey. In the latter case, the survey of the four Galician provinces is carried out from Pontevedra. In addition to this, the INE Delegation maintains the update of the electoral census, the natural movement survey of the population and, finally, coordinates with the municipalities to review the municipal registers.