More than 984,000 citizens, including 24,380 residents of Alicante, cast their votes by mail for the district and municipal elections scheduled for Sunday, 28 May. Following the extension decision issued by the Presidency of the Assembly, the voting period concluded on Thursday the 25th. These figures represent a 6.4% rise from mail-in votes in the 2019 regional and municipal elections, which also coincided with the European Parliament elections.
Correos has supplied the needed resources to meet its public-service obligations. Specifically tasked with overseeing the voting process, the organization executed 2,500 reinforcement contracts across offices, delivery operations, and logistics centers to support the election logistics.
extraordinary opening
In addition, several measures were adopted, including extraordinary opening on the 18th and 25th of May in offices located in towns celebrating local holidays those days, to ease the mail voting process. Public-service hours were extended in numerous offices nationwide, such as Melilla’s office, open from 8 am to 10 pm; offices near El Rocío opened earlier and closed later; and all offices in Madrid city and in towns with populations over 50,000 in the Community of Madrid extended their hours. The aim was to make voting by mail as convenient as possible.
Correos also coordinated the postal logistics network and deployed all necessary resources to ensure that votes accepted at any public-service point in Spain arrive at the corresponding ballot box by next Sunday.
Personalized advertising and social networks gain a place among political propaganda
For the 28 May election day, the operation of transferring mailed votes to ballot boxes was entrusted to the national postal company. A dedicated logistics distribution system was established, comprised of multiple components. Around 12,000 professionals will mobilize the fleet, the offices, and treatment centers to carry out the mission. When the ballot boxes open, a first team from the postal company will deposit the votes into the boxes at 60,587 ballot boxes spread across 22,916 locations in 8,131 municipalities in Spain.
Another group of employees will deliver votes received during the day to polling stations by post. A final team will collect the so-called “third envelope” with the final results from each polling station nationwide.
Partnership
Cooperation in regional and municipal elections on 28 May also covers the distribution of census cards and election propaganda mail, in addition to communication with polling-station members and the transfer of census lists to municipalities.
National identity cards, totaling 35,531,011, were distributed by the National Institute of Statistics to eligible residents ahead of the vote, including information about the electoral district and their polling station, as well as census records for the upcoming election date.
During the campaign, mail also distributed election-propaganda mail from different parties and coalitions participating in the elections. [Cited from Correos, 2024 data on postal voting operations and election logistics.]