SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, 9 (EUROPA PRESS)

Correos has admitted almost 63,000 requests to vote by mail to participate in the Galician elections on February 18, which is 18% less than in the last regional appointment with the polls, in which a historical record was set in marked elections due to the covid-19 pandemic.

However, the comparison with the 2016 Galician Parliament elections shows an increase of 35.7%. Eight years ago, 46,288 people asked to vote by mail compared to the 62,831 who, until the end of the deadline at midnight on Thursday, did so for the appointment with the polls on February 18.

Specifically, 45,653 requests have been submitted in person in the company’s office network, while 17,178 have been submitted electronically. These figures represent 18.2% less than in the 2020 elections.

After verifying the registration of the applicants in the Census, the Provincial Delegations of the Electoral Census Office in Galicia continue to send the shipments with the electoral documentation (certificate of registration in the census, envelopes and ballots of all the candidacies) to the indicated address by the voter in the request, with a certified and urgent nature.

The Census has until February 11 to deliver these shipments to the Post Office, which will continue to make them available to citizens as it receives them.

The applicant has until Thursday, February 15, to deposit the envelope with their vote in any Post Office throughout Spain, during its opening hours.

Correos will open its doors in Galicia during the holidays of Carnival Monday, Carnival Tuesday and Ash Wednesday to facilitate the procedures for voting by mail for the 18F elections.

Thus, in the Galician municipalities where these days are holidays, Correos will open 160 post offices on an extraordinary basis, most of them from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

In addition, it will open another 160 service points in rural areas that will be operational during their usual hours. Citizens will be able to check the hours and openings at the door of each office.

Correos has a total of 166 offices in Galicia, many of them in town halls with holidays throughout the next week. With this extension of hours, only 6 that are located in administrative buildings and commercial areas will close on Carnival Tuesday: Lonja, Xunta Building and Vigo Technology Park; Corte Inglés and Xunta Building in A Coruña and Xunta Building in Lugo.