electoral roll office

Deadline for the vote abroad extended twice for 20-D Spanish Elections

December 16, 2015 12:04 PM | Sara Prim

Spaniards living abroad will have more time to vote in the 20-D Spanish Elections. Spain’s Electoral Roll Office has twice agreed to extend the deadline for the postal vote: first it was extended from the 12th of December to the 16th, and this Wednesday the Spanish bodyhas announced its extension to the 18th. The aim is to improve a system which was described as “an authentic odyssey” by the Catalan Minister for Public Administration Meritxell Borràs when more than 200,000 Catalans whom were registered to vote in the 27-S Catalan elections couldn’t ultimately do so. This decision to facilitate the vote for the 20-D Spanish Elections contrasts with the Spanish body’s failure to do so for those Catalans living abroad who repeatedly requested an extension of the deadline for voting in the 27-S Catalan elections. 

Catalan government denounces the obstacles to the vote abroad before Supreme Court

October 29, 2015 06:47 PM | ACN / Sara Prim

More than 7,000 catalans living abroad couldn’t exercise their democratic right to vote in the past 27-S elections. Catalan Minister for Public Administration, Mertixell Borràs accused Electoral Roll Office of “violating fundamental rights” by denying the government’s petition to extend the postal vote for those Catalans living abroad but contradictorily accepting to do so for soldiers and Catalans living in other parts of Spain.. “We warned that we won’t stand on the side lines and we haven’t” stated Borràs and announced that the Catalan Government presented an appeal to the Supreme Court to “assume responsabilities”. “It is clear that irregularities did happen in the months and weeks before the 27-S” and “someone must be held accountable, whether it is someone in the Postal Service, the Foreign Ministry, or the Electoral Roll office” she stated. “We have to make sure that this won’t happen again and that such an absurd situation won’t  go unpunished”. 

Spain’s Electoral Roll Office won’t extend period to vote from abroad

September 18, 2015 04:30 PM | ACN / Sara Prim

The Catalan government admitted to being “very surprised” with the Electoral Roll Office’s decision, which it described as “contradictory”. The Spanish body agreed this Thursday to extend the postal vote but only for those who live in Spain, and not for those Catalans who live abroad. The Catalan Minister for Public Administration, Meritxell Borràs, claimed that the Electoral Roll Office is committed to “not facilitating” the vote of those who live abroad. According to the data, more people applied for a postal vote this year than in the last Catalan elections, in 2012. Compared to last time around, 4,000 more Catalans living abroad requested the postal vote on the 16th of September, the day before the deadline.