The National Police has indications that behind the avalanche of requests to vote by mail in Melilla is a plot – with a political scope – that would have paid between 50 and 200 euros for each envelope with its corresponding ballot, according to sources from the investigation. to The Vanguard. On suspicion of electoral fraud, the Zone Electoral Board (JEZ) decided yesterday to make a move and ordered that the DNI be forced to deliver the postal vote at the Post Office, something that until now was not required.
The data set off all the alarms. Yesterday, 11,002 applications to vote by mail had been registered, 19.94% of the census of the autonomous city: double that in the 2019 elections. The national average yesterday reached 2.84%, in Ceuta, a little more : 3.30%.
The law requires that the citizen present the DNI when the postman delivers the documentation. But then anyone can deliver the envelope – or several of them – at the Post Office. Without presenting the document, 704 people have cast their vote for the Assembly of Melilla. The rest of the applicants must show their document after what was agreed by the JEZ in an unprecedented decision. As reported by Efe, after this announcement, the queues of voters at the Post Office branches in the autonomous city that had occurred in recent days disappeared.
Police sources explain that now it is feared that those hundreds of votes that could have been bought could be deposited in offices on the Peninsula. For this reason, the Interior has ordered the reinforcement of the port and the airport with civil guards on suspicion that members of the plot under investigation may travel to Andalusia with the fraudulent votes. For this reason, the Central Electoral Board, meeting yesterday, agreed to require the DNI throughout the Spanish territory to any person who delivers their vote destined for the polling stations of the autonomous city.
It is not the first time that the shadow of vote-by-mail fraud has hung over Melilla. In fact, the president of the Coalition for Melilla, Mustafa Aberchán, was found guilty of buying votes. He is disabled.
The case that is now being investigated by court number 2 of Melilla – declared secret – has more than thirty suspects under scrutiny. The leaders, people close to parties with representation in the Assembly, would have asked petty criminals to look for vulnerable families to whom they could offer, in exchange for their votes, about 100 euros, which could increase if the family nucleus were large.
