The Ministry of Governance and Institutional Relations regrets the decision of the CEB, as she was sure that it would have helped many electors who in holiday times have not had sufficient time to apply for the postal vote.
The Minister of Governance and Institutional Relations, Meritxell Borrās, regrets lamented that the Central Electoral Board (CEB) does not allow an extension of the period, which ends this Saturday, 29 August, for Catalans resident abroad to ask for the postal vote. Borrās considers that with this decision, the CEB "is making it difficult for Catalans who live abroad to vote and putting bureaucracy in front of democracy". The Governance minister made these remarks in an appearance this Wednesday afternoon, after receiving the notification from the Central Electoral Board, which has responded in the negative to the request from the Ministry of Governance made on Tuesday of last week.
"We had raised this request for an extension as an exercise of democracy", said Minister Borrās, "since for many people this is holiday time and it could be that they are away from their country of residence during the period when they must ask for the vote. But the response has been to close the door on making it easy for Catalans abroad to vote and so we see that bureaucracy comes first and democracy second", the Minister insisted, and she criticised one of the arguments put forward in refusing the extension, that "it would be inappropriate because it would alter the programming of work in the Electoral Census Office".
To the question of whether the CEB´s refusal had a political motive, the Minister recalled that the Government had done everything possible to ensure that Catalans who wished to vote could do so and to avoid the repetition of episodes in earlier elections "when things were not done well enough". "We understand clearly that voting is a right and we have to make it convenient for citizens to be able to do it", Meritxell Borrās pointed out, recalling that various channels have been made available for citizens to obtain information on the elections: the web http://www.parlament2015.cat, telephone 012, e-mail, the social networks, an institutional campaign and informative videos, in addition to contacts with delegations abroad and Catalan community centres. Borrās also recalled that the Government had sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and also to the Post Office to ask them to supply the information and deal with the steps for consulates and embassies, as well as processing the documents and votes.
Last week Minister Meritxell Borrās, for and on behalf of the Government, sent a request to the Central Electoral Board, based on the dates coinciding with the holiday period for many electors resident abroad and the reduction of working hours and personnel in some consulates and consular offices in the embassies.