Five of Nine Absent on Electoral Board, No Criminal Case Follows

Five of nine absent on the board and a fine that rarely arrives

What happens if you do not show up to an electoral board? In one of the boards constituted this time, five of the nine members were missing. The Civil Guard recorded the absentees' data, and present officials recalled no such drop-off. The board was eventually formed using substitutes and whoever was available.

From there, the matter leads to two uncomfortable questions: whether the sanction ever arrives, and whether it is worth complying.

Why not going to an electoral board rarely ends in a fine

As one participant in the thread notes, not attending an electoral board does not generate an administrative sanction processed with a click: it requires opening a incivil case, involving a judge, prosecutor, judicial officials, notifications, and agents as witnesses. The system requires proving that the absentee was notified and did not appear. Multiply that cost by the thousands of designated members who do not appear, and you will understand why, according to his estimate, only about a dozen cases per year end with names and surnames.

There is a second filter. Many proceedings die due to procedural defects or lack of evidence. If a signed receipt of notification is lost, the machinery stalls. The figure of a fine of 3,000 euros via executive procedure circulates for absentees, a version that those who refute it consider false: in this case, the path would be a incivil case, not an administrative fine.

In contrast, another thesis circulating in the thread: the administration publishes the name in the official gazette, and that counts as notification, so ignorance saves no one. The nuance is one of timing, and the electoral calendar always moves fast.

Post Office, bailiff, and gazette: how notification arrives

The procedure varies by municipality, as participants recount. In some places, certified mail is used with a two-day deadline to pick it up; in small towns, a bailiff or local police delivers it in person. If the notice is not picked up, the administration can consider it notified. To close the circle, an edict must be published in the corresponding official gazette.

There is the loophole. Between the notification attempt, the pickup deadline, and the publication of the edict, the elections are held. Anyone wanting to collect the penalty needs timely and proper notification, and often lacks it. Hence the case circulating: a designated member who never went to the Post Office, who remained unlocated, who passed the turn to the next on the list. One ended up presiding over the board; the other, watching tennis at home. The rule of law, when deadlines are pressing, looks a lot like a colander.

How much do they pay to serve on an electoral board?

250 euros. The same amount for decades, and on a Sunday. The shift lasts until the count, and the conversation mentions more than ten hours, including nighttime. The calculation discussed sets the reasonable minimum at 1,000 euros.

With that scale, the lottery weighs like a reverse lottery. Hence the two solutions discussed: raise the remuneration so it truly compensates, or replace mandatory designation with volunteers and, above all, with unemployed people who need the money. The latter has its economic logic and its political problem: it turns the democracy festival into a poorly paid temporary job.

The day the board is divided by ultimatums

Constitution stories repeat. Phantom presidencies: the titular does not appear, and the first substitute saves the process. Boards where the first and second vocal members are covered by second substitutes. And the recurring scene of the person in charge losing patience and issuing a two-minute warning for those present to distribute roles before he assigns them.

There are also silent strategies. The most cited: show up, wait for others to arrive, stand near the door, and say nothing when asked about substitutes. No one signs that you were a substitute, no one leaves a record, and the turn falls to the next person who spoke. Added to this is the classic of forgotten glasses: an older man unable to read the ballots and his vvife bringing them an hour later.

And the discordant note: in the Community of Madrid, at 9:15, all members of a board were punctual. It exists.

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So the board is constituted, the voting takes place, and the file, almost always, sleeps. The festival is democracy's; the hangover, in any case, is paid by another.