On June 9, 2024, the Elections to the European Parliament will be held in Spain. Correos has adopted all the necessary organizational measures for the correct development of the activities entrusted to it during the electoral processes and for the management of postal voting.
Currently, the Provincial Delegations of the Electoral Census Office are already sending the electoral documentation to the people who have requested the postal vote.
Postal vote application: via web or in offices, until May 30
Electors who wish to vote by mail in the European Parliament Elections can still apply until May 30 (inclusive) for the Certificate of their registration in the Electoral Census, online or in person at any Correos office in Spain.
Online postal vote application and how to check it
Electors can apply for their vote through the Correos website (www.correos.es), without having to go to a post office in person. In this application model, which avoids travel, the interested party must prove their identity by means of authentication and electronic signature, accepting as valid identification systems the certificates of natural persons recognized by the Ministry of Industry in its list of qualified providers of electronic trust services and the electronic DNI (DNI-e).
People who have applied for a postal vote electronically can check the status of their application from the website www.correos.es through the following link.
Vote application in offices
The postal vote application can also be made free of charge at all Correos offices in Spain. This request must be made personally by each elector, except in case of illness or disability –accredited by official medical certification- that prevents him/her from personally formulating said request. In this case, it can be presented on behalf of the elector by another person authorized by a notary or consulate.
At the time of submitting the application, interested parties must prove their identity by presenting to the post office employee the original of their ID card, passport, driving license or Residence Card (in the case of citizens of the European Union who have one).
Both in the online and in-person application, the address where you will be in the period in which the Provincial Delegations of the Electoral Census Office send the necessary documentation to vote must be indicated, and it does not have to coincide with the usual address.
Once the application has been submitted via web or in person, if it is accepted by the Electoral Census Office, it will not be possible to vote at the polling station on the day of the European Parliament Elections.
Hand delivery of electoral documentation
After verifying the registration of postal vote applicants in the census, the Provincial Delegations of the Electoral Census Office send the shipments with the electoral documentation (certificate of registration in the census, envelopes and ballots of all candidacies) to the address indicated by the elector in the application, with certified and urgent character. Currently, these shipments are already being made.
The Correos postman or postwoman will make at least two attempts to deliver this documentation by hand to the recipient, leaving a notice for them to pick it up at the nearest office if it has not been possible to make that hand delivery.
To make the delivery, Correos staff will verify the identity of the voter by means of their ID card, Passport, Driving License or Residence Card (in the case of citizens of the European Union who have one) and will record the number of the identification document, attesting to the receipt of the envelopes and ballots with the signature of the delivery by the applicant.
How to request that the electoral documentation be forwarded to another address
Once the Electoral Census Office (OCE) has sent the electoral documentation to the address indicated by the applicant, the Central Electoral Board allows the forwarding of that electoral documentation to other addresses, provided that there is an express request from the elector. For example, if a person has requested to receive the electoral documentation at one address and has to leave before receiving it, they can carry out this procedure at any computerized Correos office, being mandatory for this purpose to provide the registration number of the electoral documentation they wish to forward, which can be obtained at the following OCE address.
You can request that the documentation be forwarded to another address or to another Correos office. In any case, it is important that the elector takes into account that they must request said forwarding with sufficient time so that Correos can get their documentation to the new address.
Deposit of the vote: until June 6
The applicant has until Thursday, June 6, to deposit the envelope with their vote at any Correos office throughout Spain, during its usual opening hours, according to the extension agreement agreed by the Central Electoral Board.
In accordance with the instructions of the Central Electoral Board, in this electoral process the personal delivery by the elector at the Correos offices of the necessary documentation to exercise the postal vote is required. For this purpose, when depositing the postal vote, they must identify themselves by presenting their National Identity Document, passport, driving license, residence card or any other valid document that allows the elector to be identified, and Correos staff must proceed to verify it.
Authorization to delegate the deposit of the vote
People who requested the postal vote but cannot go to the Correos office in person to deposit the vote, must grant an authorization for the delivery to be made by another person on their behalf. The authorization must be signed by the elector and accompanied by a photocopy of their National Identity Document, passport or other official identification document, as well as a photocopy of the identification document of the person they authorize.
To facilitate the drafting of this authorization document with all the necessary data, Correos recommends using the authorization model that can be downloaded from the website www.correos.es.
Correos staff will not accept the delivery of electoral documentation belonging to another elector if it is not accompanied by the corresponding authorization signed by the elector, which must be kept, together with the photocopy of the official document accrediting the elector and who delivers the electoral documentation on their behalf, for its remission to the corresponding Electoral Board.
It is recommended that citizens who wish to exercise their right to vote by mail try not to wait until the last day and take advantage of the extended hours of the post offices.
Census cards and electoral propaganda
In addition to the procedures directly related to postal voting, Correos' collaboration in the European Parliament Elections also extends to the distribution of census cards and electoral propaganda mailings, as well as, in some cases, communications to members of the Electoral Boards of the City Councils with which there is an agreement, the sending of the census list to the City Councils, the collection of documentation on election day, etc.
All of these are public service obligations that Correos has entrusted to it as the operator designated by the State to provide the Universal Postal Service in Spain.
All necessary resources
Correos is putting all the necessary human, technological and logistical resources to guarantee compliance with the commitments entrusted to it in the electoral processes.
Specifically, Correos will reinforce attention to citizens in its network of 2,388 offices throughout Spain. Exclusive windows for elections may be enabled and, if the influx requires it, additional tables specifically designed to manage postal voting will be installed in the lobby.
In addition, the office network will have 924 PDAs to speed up customer service in offices with a higher influx of postal voting and an employee will be in charge of managing queues, also attending with a PDA.
The use of the appointment system that is already operating in 526 offices throughout Spain will also be promoted. In addition, in the offices where it is necessary, an option will be activated in the shift manager for “Postal Vote”, to prioritize attention or channel it to specific positions, all in order to speed up attention and reduce waiting times in the offices during the electoral period.
In this sense, and given that the deadline to apply for postal voting for the European elections is May 30, an autonomous regional holiday in Castilla-La Mancha and the Canary Islands, as well as a local holiday in numerous municipalities of other autonomous regions, Correos has decided to open its technical offices from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the localities where it is a holiday, to facilitate postal voting for all citizens.
As for the distribution network, it will have 550 additional PDAs, which will facilitate the delivery of electoral documentation. Likewise, transport routes will be adapted for the remission of documentation from logistics centers to all distribution units according to needs. And the service will also be reinforced in all logistics centers, including the one located at the “Adolfo Suárez” Madrid-Barajas airport, for the correct management of international shipments.
