Spain votes by mail in record numbers, as conservatives feud with the postal service

MADRID — Spain’s conservatives have a new boogeyman: The postal service.

Ahead of next weekend’s national election, post offices across the country have been mobbed by voters seeking to sign up for mail-in balloting before the deadline for that option expires this Thursday. Spain’s center-right Popular Party, however, isn’t happy — and is accusing the postal service of meddling in the election.

According to Correos, the state-owned postal service, a whopping 94,000 Spaniards filed for mail-in voting on Wednesday. Madrid resident Alejandro Rodríguez, who is registered to vote in his hometown of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, was one of them.

“I waited until the last moment, more because of laziness than anything else,” he admitted sheepishly. “But fortunately it was all super straightforward: I came extra early, at 8:30 in the morning, and there was barely any line so I was done within 15 minutes.”

It’s the first time that Spain is holding an election so late in the summer, when more than a quarter of registered voters are expected to be on vacation. From the beginning, record numbers of mail-in votes were expected, but far more electors than anticipated have gone this route.

By Thursday, 2,456,826 mail-in applications had been registered, accounting for nearly 7 percent of all registered voters who are residents in Spain and more than doubling the 997,530 mail-in ballots filed in November 2019, when Spain last held a national election.

Although some of the postal service’s trade unions have complained that Correos was not showing sufficient alacrity to deal with the avalanche of applications, the entity insists the process is under control, in part thanks to the extended operating hours its offices are offering across the country in order to accommodate the procrastinating electors.

The service has also hired 19,400 extra workers ahead of the election, and been aided by a surprisingly dedicated permanent staff. More than 30 percent of the employees scheduled to go on vacation in July voluntarily requested to delay their holidays in order to ensure none of the offices were short-staffed.

Right-wing umbrage

Despite those efforts, center-right Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo this week cast doubt on Correos’ ability to carry out its duties and suggested the postal service’s directors were purposely trying to meddle in the voting process.

“I ask the postmen in Spain to work to the maximum, morning, afternoon and night,” Núñez Feijóo said during a campaign rally in Murcia on Wednesday. “Even if they do not have sufficient reinforcements, I want them to know that they are entrusted with something that is sacred to Spaniards: Their vote.”

“Regardless of your bosses, I urge you to distribute all the mail-in ballots on time so that we Spaniards can vote,” he added.

Current polls project Núñez Feijóo to score the most votes in the upcoming election, with his Popular Party currently 4 points ahead of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists.

Neither party is expected to win an outright majority, which means both will need to form coalitions in order to govern. Núñez Feijóo has expressed a willingness to form a government with the far-right Vox party, while Sánchez is interested in forming a left-wing coalition government similar to the one he has led since 2019.

Correos responded to Feijóo’s remarks with an indignant statement in which it defended the professionalism of its 45,000 employees and rejected any suggestion of mismanagement.

“Correos seeks to remain outside of any and all debates that seek to undermine the country’s institutions and public services,” the statement said, emphasizing the postal service had carried out its duties efficiently over the course of its 307 years of existence.

“Mail-in voting in Spain is safe and secure,” the statement continued. “The Central Electoral Board, an independent body, is in charge of auditing the process and ensuring that it is carried out with all the guarantees for citizens.”

Sánchez also weighed in on the matter, accusing Núñez Feijóo of attempting to undermine trust in public institutions with the ultimate goal of distracting voters from the coalition governments his party is forming with Vox in regions like Valencia and Extremadura.

“This is a mudslinging strategy that aspires to make people distrust the electoral system and not vote,” said Sánchez. “But Spain is a robust democracy and we are going to have a clean, democratic process.”

Madrid resident Rodríguez said he trusted Spain’s mail-in system and Correos’ ability to correctly handle his vote.

“Canary Islanders are used to mailing our ballots,” he said. “The process has always worked in the past and even with more folks voting this way, I’m confident it will be fine this time as well.”