Polling station guide: how to get notified if you’ve been hit and who can get out

More than half a million voters – between holders and substitutes – will soon be designated as members of the polling stations that will carry out the scrutiny in the general elections on July 23. The selection is made through draws carried out by the municipalities and which will be held between June 24 and 28, according to fixed electoral law. From there, the consistories have three days to personally notify the elect that they have been appointed. Nine people are selected for each polling station: a president, two members and two substitutes for each of them.

Being at a polling station is an obligation and those who do not attend without cause accepted by the Zone Electoral Board expose themselves to an electoral crime that can be punished with jail sentences of three months to one year or fines of six months to two years. The fact that the elections coincide with a normal vacation period has raised questions in the event of being chosen to form part of a polling station when a vacation trip has already been contracted or about what happens if the notification cannot be delivered by hand to the be absent from the habitual residence. elDiario.es resolves the main doubts about this citizen obligation below:

Who can be called and who is exempt?

The members of the polling stations are chosen by public lottery among the people included in the list of voters of the corresponding polling station, as long as they know how to read and write and are under 70 years of age. It is an unavoidable civic duty, although there are certain circumstances that suppose an almost automatic exoneration as long as they are justified before the Zone Electoral Board. Among these causes is being over 65 years of age, having a disability of at least 33%, being on medical or maternity leave, being pregnant for more than six months, being the mother of a nursing baby up to nine months old or having been part of of a polling station at least three times in the last ten years, according to a 2018 instruction.

Doctors and other health personnel who are on duty that day or people who can claim that their appointment represents a serious disorder as a result of their family responsibilities are also exonerated. In addition, there are other causes that can also free a voter from being part of the polling station, although in this case it is the Zone Electoral Board that will assess the “circumstances of the specific case.” For example, the concurrence on the day of the election of “family events of special relevance, which cannot be postponed or in which the postponement causes important economic damages, provided that the interested party is the protagonist or has a relationship with him until the second degree of consanguinity”.

In this regard, the Central Electoral Board clarified this Thursday that having a “vacation trip” contracted “before the date of calling the elections” – that is, May 30 – can exempt you from being at a polling station as long as the “cancellation causes economic damage or serious disruption to the applicant”. Since the last elections, the “excuses” for not going to a polling station can be presented electronically through the digital certificate.

How do I know the result of the draw?

There is no public list where you can check the results of the draws. The notification must be personal for each person selected and that is a responsibility of the municipalities. Article 27.2 of the electoral law establishes that the consistories have three days to make this communication, although there is no specific regulation on how they should do it. Typically, Post Office employees are in charge of distributing the documentation by certified mail with acknowledgment of receipt at the addresses of the chosen persons.

In the absence of a specific legal framework, the general regime established by the law of administrative procedure is applied. In its article 42.2, this rule states that at least two notification attempts must be made at different times. That is, if you have been at a home in the morning, you try the next day in the afternoon and vice versa. In addition, the documentation can be delivered to “any person over the age of fourteen who is at home and can state their identity.”

What happens if no one answers the door?

If, after that second attempt, nobody opens the door and it is not possible to deliver the documentation, the postman will leave a notice in the mailbox. The shipment will then be available to the recipient at a Post Office. From here, there is no unanimous criterion among the councils consulted.

In Madrid, where 31,302 citizens will be required – between holders and substitutes -, a spokesperson explains that once the notification notice is in the recipient’s mailbox it is their “responsibility” to comply with their electoral obligation, in the same way that occurs with any Other documentation sent by the administration, such as notices of fines or embargoes. And that it will be the Zone Electoral Board that will take the pertinent measures.

Other municipalities, such as Zaragoza, mobilize Local Police patrols to try to deliver uncollected notifications, details a spokeswoman. The agents go through the home of the chosen ones at least twice, although sometimes they try up to five times. If there is no response, the municipal body notifies the Zone Electoral Board that it has not been possible to hand-deliver the documentation and it is this body that “continues to make the pertinent decisions,” says this same source.

In addition, article 44 of the administrative procedure law establishes that when all attempts are unsuccessful, the notification will be made by means of an announcement published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). And that, previously, the administrations may publish an announcement on the bulletin board of the town hall. This was done, for example, by the council of the Ourense municipality of Allariz (6,000 inhabitants) in 2015, after the failed attempt to notify three of its neighbors that they had been chosen to form part of individual polling stations for the general elections of that year.

Does not collecting the documentation exempt you from the electoral obligation?

According to the doctrine of the Supreme Court, the fact that the notification is not received by anyone at the address does not nullify its effects. The High Court has considered that the “double unsuccessful delivery attempt” of the documentation by certified mail with acknowledgment of receipt is enough for a procedure to be “completed”. For this, the jurisprudence determines that the notification attempt must be “duly accredited” and have been carried out in compliance with the “legal requirements”. And that the procedure will be considered carried out when the administration in question receives the return of the certified shipment that it carried out.

In addition, the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court is inclined to confirm the sanctions imposed on those citizens who do not duly justify their failure to appear at the corresponding table on election day and there is a doctrine that validates that said conduct can be sentenced even with a prison sentence.

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