Mail-in votes expected to surpass 2 million in July Spanish election

As Spain prepares to hold its early election on July 23, many people are concerned about how will they vote as the date may coincide with their summer vacation plans.

With less than one month to go, it's expected that mail-in votes will increase and break records of past elections. In fact, Google searches for "vote by mail" and "how to vote by mail" skyrocketed following Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez's announcement of the snap election on May 29. 

The CCOO trade union told Catalan News that 1.7 million people have requested to vote by mail, and the final number is expected to be around 2 million. Some 120,000 of the requests have been made in Catalonia, 90,000 of which are in Barcelona alone.

Although these numbers are not final, as citizens can still ask for their mail-in ballots until July 13, this quantity would indicate surpassing the current record of people casting early votes. 

In the 2016 general election, held on June 26, more than 1.4 million people voted by post as the election was also during the summer months. 

In Catalan elections, the record for most citizens voting by mail was set in the 2021 vote, when amid the pandemic 280,000 voters went to post offices to cast their ballot. One of them was Enric, who is also requesting his early vote for the July election: "I had bought plane tickets the day before the election was announced, so I did not think twice about voting by mail."

Compared to the last general election, which was in November 2019, workers at Correos post offices have seen their workload increase in the last few days since applications to vote by mail began. Laura, a worker in a post office in Barcelona, told Catalan News that "even though we offer a lot of other services, voting is taking up most of our time right now." 

CCOO argues that the number of staff is not enough for the workload that post offices are handling these days, and they demand more resources for the upcoming weeks.

Correos has also asked citizens who want to vote by mail to "not wait until the last minute," in order to speed the process up and avoid waiting in long lines as a high turnout is expected.

In the most recent elections in May, the one million mark for mail-in applications was also surpassed in Spain, up 5% on mail-in applications of the previous election four years earlier. 

Registrations to vote by mail are open until July 13. To do so, eligible voters have to go to a post office with their ID or passport to identify themselves, or can also request it online through the Correos web site. After the request, the envelope with every electoral ballot will be delivered to the applicant's houses.

Voters have until July 20 to get to the post office again to cast their final vote.