Government to recruit 4,500 volunteers for October 1 referendum

The Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, announced on Wednesday that the Government will recruit 4,500 volunteers to become election officials for the independence referendum. The volunteers, who do not need to be civil servants, will be trained to guarantee the proper functionality of the voting. Puigdemont thereby guaranteed that nobody will be forced to work as an election official on October 1 against his or her will. Despite not offering many details, the President also said that all the “technical and legal details” of the vote will be presented by the end of June, together with all the democratic guarantees for the referendum. The Vice President, Oriol Junqueras, pointed out that the law of electoral processes (LOREG) does not state that election officials must be public servants nor does it specify who has to coordinate them. In this context, he insisted that the Government's objective is to hold the referendum on October 1 according to the mechanisms of any other electoral process and, in the event that this becomes impossible because of Spain’s veto, in the closest way possible.