Last Nights Meeting & Postal Voting

As is the case at the moment, Partido Andalucista met again last night. It was the night for the youth of the villages to come along and tell us what they wanted to see during the next four years, which I thought was very democratic. About 15 to 20 young people under the age of 21 called into the office and gave support to the party and had their say on issues they thought should be included in the manifesto.

I was also able to present the findings of the survey and was pleased to see that a couple of the other candidates also identified similar issues. So we will keep working on it over the next few days.

The remainder of this post is a copy from the Entertainer online newspaper and explains the, not simplistic, process to vote by post.

You can vote with a voto por correos between May 2nd and 18th. The 'how to' follows below the fold.

I am unavoidably absent on Voting Day so I will have to be a postal voter. What do I do?
This is a complex process so please do try to be in Zurgena to vote on May 22nd in person if at all possible. If you know you cannot attend in person, you will need to vote by post.
The forms for postal voting are now available at the Post Offices (Voto por Correo - Solicitud de Certificacion). You do not need ID at this stage although it is always wise to take some! You can collect more than one at a time.
However, once completed, they will have to be returned individually, in person, to the Post Office, with ID (NIE or Passport or Certificate of Residence - whichever you ticked on your form ). You will also need some form of ID with your photo on it, like your Passport or Spanish Driving License. You may want to use your Passport as ID anyway. They will need your signature to match to the original one on the form.
The Post Office will post the form on for you in an envelope which they provide. Once the form is submitted, you will not be able to vote in person in the 2011 Local Elections.

This is only the start of the process.

You will receive by certified post (in your apartado, if you have one) the voting papers for all the parties standing in the election with the different candidates listed, an instruction sheet, the electoral envelopes, a certificate of inscription and an envelope with the address of the polling station sheet. This will be between May 2nd- 12th. Again, you will need to sign a notice of receipt and provide proof of identity at the post office. No-one else can collect the papers on your behalf - you must do this in person.
This process has to be completed no later than 10 days before Voting Day on May 22nd: in other words, before 12th May.
When you have collected the papers, you will then have to select the one voting slip of the party of your choice which must not be written on. You must put this into the voting envelope which must be sealed. This envelope, together with the certificate, must be placed in the envelope addressed to the polling station and sent by registered post (no stamps needed) before May 18th (but it would be foolish to leave it this late, given the vagaries of the Spanish postal system). Again, You will need to provide proof of identity
This all takes time (this is Spain, after all!) so it is vital you get your postal voting application form(s) right now to avoid missing the deadline.