Most of the anecdotes on election Sundays are stories that take place around a polling station. Others start there... and it is not known where they end. From polling station presidents on the run to candidates who forget the required ID, record voting and unexpected visits, these are some curiosities that occurred at the polling stations this May 28:
- A polling station chaired by nuns. One of the usual images in the media in elections are nuns voting. In the Cantabrian municipality of Solares, the polling station has been made up of three nuns from the congregation of the Daughters of Santa María del Corazón de Jesús. They have performed their task with their habits.
- A goat visits the polls (twice). The most original anecdote has probably been the unexpected visit that members of the Setecoros electoral college have had, in Valga (Pontevedra): a goat has slipped in -up to two times-. This moment has been shared by the Twitter user Sara Seco:
- The table president who went for a coffee and never came back. It has happened in Inca (Mallorca). She replaced a man who had not turned up and, at the same time, she had to be replaced when her colleagues saw that she did not return after asking to go out, shortly after starting the day, for a coffee .
- Arrested for incidents after refusing to take their places at the polling station. The National Police have arrested a 33-year-old man at a polling station in Santander who has become aggressive after being chosen to replace the president of the polling station, who had suffered an illness and had to be absent. The substitutes had already left, so the members of the Zone Electoral Board had to go to resolve the incident: it was determined that a 33-year-old man would stay, who has become aggressive with the officials, which has forced to intervene with the police. In Getafe (Madrid) a 46-year-old man has also been arrested at the Sacred Heart College. According to police sources, he was designated as a substitute for a person at the table who had appeared and, when someone other than the one he should replace failed, he understood that it was not his place to take his place.
- The town that completes the vote in less than what it would take you to read this article. The "electoral sprint" is becoming a tradition in the Rioja municipality of Villarroya -with seven registered inhabitants- it has been at the forefront of information by completing the vote in 29 seconds and 52 hundredths, surpassing its 2019 record by almost three seconds. " We are already well trained. There are seven of us, three are at the table, another three, substitutes, and one more person. So, by 8 in the morning, we were all here waiting," said the current mayor and candidate for revalidate the position, Salvador Pérez. By the way, Pérez took office for the first time in 1973 and has been chaining mandates since then.
- The mayor of Valladolid forgets his ID to go vote. The socialist Óscar Puente has had to wait several minutes on the street until they have brought him the ID that he had left behind at home.
- The voter who left their ID inside the ballot. A voter from Martos (Jaén) will have to wait for the polls to open to retrieve his ID, which he inserted in the envelope. After realizing his action, he has claimed it from the members of the table, who will deliver it to him once the ballot box is opened for the count.
- A voter from Almería inserts three envelopes at the same time and decides to draw two at random before counting. He has put three envelopes in the ballot box at the same time, which has led to paralyzing the voting. The National Police has identified the person and the Electoral Board has resolved that, at the close of election day, two envelopes be drawn at random before counting begins.
- The vote of a person who was not on the census has "sneaked" into a ballot box. It has been in Moreruela de Tábara, a municipality of about three hundred inhabitants, as confirmed to Efe by sources from the Government Sub-delegation in Zamora. When he had already entered the ballot paper, it was found that he was not really supposed to vote because he did not appear on the voters' roll for that municipality. The anomaly has led to a claim that is in the hands of the area electoral board, which has agreed that voting continue normally. In the event that that vote were to be decisive, the electoral board could order the repetition of the voting in that municipality.
- Protest because they put children's chairs for their table. Also in Zamora, several members of a polling station have protested because they barely fit in the children's chairs in which they were sitting.
- Call the locksmith first thing in the morning. In León, in San Andrés del Rabanedo, the janitor has left the keys and a locksmith had to go quickly so that the school could open on time, as it has been.
- A person over the age of 65 is left with the desire to take their place at the table. In Candelario (Salamanca), the process has been paralyzed because the first substitute president, not having the credential made for being over 65 years of age, has not been able to sit down despite coming with that desire. He has replaced the second.
- Soccer hangover from promotion to Primera in Granada. Confirmed last night after the team's 2-0 victory against Leganés at the Nuevo Los Cármenes stadium, the promotion has been present in many schools with voters coming dressed in the rojiblancos colors.
- Ballots with an extra guest. The inhabitants of Rapariegos (Segovia) will close their school an hour and a half later because one more candidate appeared on the PSOE ballots. The electoral board has ruled that the vote be carried out with the error, but informing all voters that only the first four names were valid.
- They take the ballot box out into the street so that an elderly person in a wheelchair can vote. The members of a polling station at the Santa Engracia Institute in Madrid have taken a ballot box out onto the street to make it easier for an elderly person in a wheelchair to vote given the difficulty of accessing the premises because it does not have a ramp. Under a light rain, the president and the members of the table have taken the ballot box and the census list and have taken it to the sidewalk, where the man has handed over his ID to verify his identity. Thus, he has been able to introduce the ballot, which he brought from home. They have subsequently done the same with another elderly lady with mobility problems who she was waiting for on the landing of one of the entrances to the institute.
- Schools that will have to close later. A table at the Emilia Pardo Bazán School, in the A Coruña City Hall, due to the lack of personnel and the delay in establishing itself, will have to extend its voting hours to 36 minutes after eight in the afternoon. In the city of Ourense, one of the polling stations was completed with the first voter of the day. In these cases, the electoral regulations indicate that the vote is extended by the same amount of time as the delay accumulated in the constitution of the polling station.
