SPAIN’S postal service Correos has asked for a half-day extension to the deadline for accepting postal votes ahead of Sunday’s general election.
A record number of people are casting ballots by post due to the election being held in the middle of the summer with a union representative warning that Spaniards tend to ‘leave everything to the last minute’.
Correos wants the deadline to be extended to 2.00pm on Friday as opposed to 10.00pm on Thursday, with voters handing over their ballot papers in post offices.
The request has been lodged with the Central Electoral Commission and follows some delays in sending out ballots to voters who registered to vote by post, particularly for those who changed the address where they wanted to receive them, Correos said in a statement.
A record 2.6 million people have requested to vote by post after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a surprise election for July 23, when many potential voters had already booked their summer holidays.
Zaida Llano, a postal service union leader, said post offices in holiday hotspots were coming under pressure.
“We Spaniards tend to leave everything to the last minute,” Llano said.
“There are queues in some tourist areas and fewer people in the centres of the big cities.”
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