10% of votes cast by mail in Spain's 2023 election: anomaly or strategy?

2.47 million postal votes: the figure nobody investigates from the July election

Spain's July 23, 2023 election left behind a figure many prefer to overlook: 2.47 million applications for postal voting out of an electoral roll of 24.9 million voters. Nearly 10% asked to vote away from their polling station, an unprecedented number for a general election called in the middle of summer. The uncomfortable question is whether such demand reflects a genuine need or something more organized.

An opaque procedure and a suspicious date

The current system mixes postal votes with in-person ballots when polls close, making it impossible to trace which parties capture that segment. Only votes cast from abroad are counted separately, and they are a tiny fraction. Calling the election for July 23, right in the middle of the holiday season, forced thousands of citizens to resort to postal voting if they did not want to give up their vacation plans. Coincidence or calculation?

Complaints and political silence

Various analyses point to irregularities. In a town in Seville province, postal voting quintupled between 2019 and a later election, handing the majority to the PSOE (Spain's Socialist Party). Other accounts describe receipts at Correos (the Spanish postal service) counters showing mentions of previous votes, as if the system were dragging in other people's data. No party has directly attacked the process. Some argue postal voting is a sieve for fraud; others say abolishing it would hurt those who genuinely need it. Feijóo, they say, avoids denouncing it because he might want to use it in the future.

Indra's role and what goes unsaid

Indra, the company that manages the electoral software, comes up in the suspicions because of its ties to the government and its track record in other processes. However, there is no conclusive evidence or open investigation confirming manipulation. The system's opacity and the lack of political will to audit it fuel distrust.

With these figures, the 10% postal-voting anomaly would merit an independent investigation. Meanwhile, the 2023 election will remain under suspicion for a growing share of the electorate.

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