With the general elections set for Sunday, July 23, many citizens these days are waiting to know whether or not they will be part of a polling station. A circumstance that could jeopardize the summer vacation plans of more than half a million Spaniards.

Each 23J polling station is made up of a president and two members, in addition to two substitutes for each of the polling station members who must appear before the constitution of the polling station. These people are designated by public lottery among all the people included in the list of voters of the corresponding polling station.

For the 2023 general elections, 60,340 polling stations are expected to be set up, reports Europa Press, with which the city councils must call more than half a million people: 181,020 regular members and another 362,040 substitutes. And all of them will be summoned at 8:00 am on Sunday, July 23.

The draws are held between the twenty-fifth and twenty-ninth days after the elections are called, which in the case of 23J is between June 24 and 28, 2023.

However, the Central Electoral Board has allowed the municipalities to advance the draw to Thursday, June 22, as long as the consistories have the electoral rolls ready. In fact, municipalities such as Madrid and San Sebastián held the draws that day. Other consistories will do the same in the coming days: Oviedo, on Friday the 23rd; Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela, on Saturday 24; Valencia and Bilbao, on Monday 26…

Once the draw for each table has been held, the Zone Electoral Board will send the notifications to the selected citizens at their homes within a period of 3 days.

This means that a citizen called to form part of a polling station will know it no later than Saturday, July 1, although many notifications will begin to be delivered at the beginning of the last week of June.

The Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG) contemplates several reasons why a citizen can get rid of going to a polling station. To these, we must add a new one introduced for these elections.

The Central Electoral Board (JEC) has approved that having contracted vacations before May 29, 2023 may serve citizens to get rid of a polling station.

In these cases, the citizen must carry out a procedure and comply with the established deadlines.

Upon receiving the notification at home, voters will have a period of 7 days to present their allegations before the Zone Electoral Board if they want to try to get rid of it.

Subsequently, the Electoral Board must resolve the claims within a period of five days.

The citizens selected for this must appear at the polling station on election day, since if they do not do so, “they will incur a prison sentence of three months to one year or a fine of six to twenty-four months.”

According to the criteria of The Trust Project