Barça receive 20,663 postal votes

A total of 20,663 postal votes were delivered to FC Barcelona today by the Post Office as the final figure for votes of his nature in the elections for the FC Barcelona presidency which take place this Sunday. The final figure confirms that this way of voting has been used for the very first time in the history of presidential elections at the Club has been a great success. Of the 22,811 members who requested this method of voting, some 90.6% have completed the process with validation of these votes still to take place. 

Once those members who have requested a postal vote, 22,811, some 20.7% of eligible voters, some 87,749 (79.3% of eligible voters) will be able to vote in person this Sunday at one of the six territorial voting stations. Of those a total of 78,987 voters are designated to vote at the Campus FC Barcelona, where there will be 101 electoral tables at Camp Nou and 10 at the Palau Blaugrana. 

As a reference point, in the 2015 elections a total of 47,270 members took part and highest turnout for a presidential election came in 2010 with 57,088 voters. 

Of the 22,811 members who requested a postal vote, 90.6% have completed the process.

Representatives from the Post Office delivered all the postal votes to the stadium with members of the Electoral Table and Board present along with representatives of the three candidacies and a notary who witnessed the delivery. The envelopes were stamped at the Sala Roma at Camp Nou and will be under 24hr security until Sunday 7 March. 

Validation process for postal votes

A total of electoral tables with two people at each table working simultaneously situated in the Sala Roma will be in charge of gathering together the votes sent by post. 

At 9.15am CET on Sunday the room where the postal votes have been guarded will be emptied and the validation process will be begin, supervised at all times by a notary. 

All the envelopes received will be put in alphabetical order and assigned to the corresponding electoral table. Each envelope will then be opened and the documentation inside verified. Present must be the voting certificate, which confirms the voter's identity and the envelope with the vote itself inside. 

Fraud control table

If the members of the table see that the voting certificate is missing or it is not the original, that vote will not be considered valid and it will be kept to one side. To combat possible election fraud, validation will take place using a UV lamp to detect whether the document is the original or not or if it has been tampered with. 

From that moment each of the 30 tables designated for postal votes will follow the same procedure as for presencial votes.

·         Confirm that the member is on the list of postal voters. 

·         Mark with an x on the post vote register. 

·         Put the vote in the corresponding ballot box.

·         Write the name on the report form.  

·        Carry out the count as the end of the electoral day just as with the other tables at the Campus FC Barcelona and the other five voting venues.  

Counting votes

The process of counting, both at the Campus FC Barcelona main side and the other sites at Girona, Lleida, Tarragona, Tortosa and Andorra, will start at 9.00pm CET when the polls close using the following process: 

1.       When the Electoral Table gives the order, counting will begin.

2.       The ballot box is emptied.

3.       The president opens the envelopes and reads the vote out loud.

4.       Each voting slip will accumulate a punch situated on each Table. Votes are classed in the following way: 

·         Spoilt vote: a voting slip or envelope which differs the one issued by the Club, ripped , damaged or contains more than one voting slip. 

·         None of the Above vote: Empty voting slip, envelope.

·         Candidate vote: Voting slips containing a vote for a candidate (Joan Laporta, Antoni Freixa, Víctor Font).

5.       The official writes down each vote in the voting count form.  

6.      The president records the result in the counting report: how many votes each candidate has, how many NOTA votes and spoilt votes that have to make up the number of members who have voted in that electoral table. 

7.      If there is something to mention, they must do so in the comments section of the Report. 

8.       The President and the official sign the voting report and deliver it to the electoral table.  

Given that it is the first time in presidential elections that voting will take place in six different locations and not just at the Club's facilities, the results from the different voting stations will have to be added up. The Club will provide continuous TV coverage during election day and the count. The documentation will be the same as at the Campus. The President and Official will sign the voting report and send it to the Electoral Table via Signaturit (a secure, encrypted format) and the validation process will be done via IT. All the material from the voting location will be placed inside the ballot box to be returned to the club. The originals of all the documents will be the responsibility of the Social Area. 

The definitive count report from the elections will be put together by the Electoral Table in a meeting of its members in private and a copy can be given to each candidate. Once the count report is signed, the Electoral Board and Electoral Table will jointly announced the winner of the elections, the candidate who has obtained a majority of valid votes.