PIOC have written to the British Deputy Vice Consul in Alicante claiming that 10,000 letters explaining their Voting Rights, addressed to Permanent British Residents living in Orihuela Costa have not arrived.
Despite the letters being despatched by the Censo Electoral Oficina in Madrid on 28 November they say that the voting information is still to be received by many thousands of potential voters.
PIOC have demanded that the British Ambassador be informed of the contents of the letter and that the Embassy makes urgent contact with the Electoral Authorities requesting an extension to the 15 January deadline for registration.
They also claim that despite assurances by the Councillor for Statistics that three staff would be employed at the Orihuela Costa Town Hall to deal with voter registration, only one is currently being used, causing an even greater backlog.
PIOC also state in the letter that a similar situation is being experience in Urb La Marina, another large settlement of British Residents.
Meanwhile, PIOC have said that they will be outside the Town Hall, Playa Flamenca, from 2nd January 2023, to provide assistance to anyone wishing to complete the voting registration process.
The full letter to the Deputy Vice Consul continues below:
LETTER FROM PIOC TO DEPUTY VICE CONSUL
Good morning Sara
Thank you for your reply dated 12th December 2022.
I write to inform you, sadly, the situation regarding the Voting Rights process for approximately 10,000 permanent British Residents living in Orihuela Costa is not good, they feel badly let down.
Not only have they NOT received the letters from the Censo Electoral Oficina Madrid, regards their interest to Voting, as promised by the Diputacion and the Consulate and as at the close of Wednesday 14th December, the promise of 3 staff dealing with the voting process by the Councillor for Foreigners and the Manager of the Padron office has not transpired.
There is only 1 member of staff dealing with all Padron queries and voting rights, thus the queues of people waiting are long.
PIOC organised 12 clinics as from 1st December, in local businesses at locations around Orihuela Costa, to offer advice and information how to register intention to vote. These clinics have been well attended, we also have added the voting registration form on our website to help assist the process for the Town Hall staff, but as I said, only 1 member of staff is dedicated to dealing with people wanting to vote.
If they kept their promise of 3 staff, the process and queues would be avoided. If the letters had arrived it would save them a lot of work and time!
This is disgraceful, especially as the Orihuela Town Hall, the Diputacion Alicante and the British Consulate gave assurances, the almost 10,000 permanent British residents living in Orihuela Costa, who would be eligible to vote, would be able to, with the promises of additional staff if the letters did not arrive or the contact details on these letters were not correct.
Thousands of letters have not arrived, thousands of people will be denied their right to vote, this is unacceptable. We know the letters were posted on 28th November, but, where are they?
This is not the first time as we all are aware. Previous elections resulted in similar tactics, 12000 letters not delivered in 2007 due to the poor address system, letters dumped in bins in consecutive years. To be allowed to continue is an absolute scandal which needs immediate action and investigation.
We contacted a Councillor at San Fulgencio, who informed us they also had not received the voting letters, this is another area having a large number of non EU British residents. Darren Parmenter who is a Councillor and a few others did put in an official request to extend the deadline of the 15th January 2023 by an extra few weeks but is was flatly turned down, no discussions or anything. We wonder if any areas of Alicante province have received the letters?
I know you are aware of the situation at the Orihuela Costa Town Hall, we have spoken about these issues for years, in particular, the postal service.
As you quite correctly say in your email, “you asked the Town Hall to be considerate of the needs of British Nationals and to allow as much flexibility as possible for those who need to register to vote and hope that most people will receive their letter, but we are aware that there may be delays and problems with the post” etc.
We knew this would be an issue and the volume of Brit’s in the area would create further problems for the postal service, makes us wonder why settle for promises of extra resources of one extra person and 6 hours more per week with such a short time scale.
We hope you can urgently find out what has happened to the letters and why the Orihuela Costa Padron office only has one member of staff dealing with the process of Voting Rights. She seems very helpful but trying to cope on her own.
Sadly, the situation is dire, the lack of letters which should have arrived by the end of the first week of December, plus the lack of staff to deal with the voting process, will cause more frustration and anger against the existing ruling government, who are believed to be putting obstacles in the way, hoping people would give up. There should be more staff, taking into the account the few days left with the Spanish bank holidays.
They feel they have been badly let down by the UK government, who assured them they have Voting Rights but would need to re-register as non- EU residents. This is the reason PIOC decided to hold clinics, to give the correct advice and information to British residents as provided at the Seminar held 14th November. I recorded the meeting to ensure all the information given at these clinics would be exactly what was given at the Seminar, it has proved to be very useful.
The deadline to register to vote 15th January 2023, we strongly request an extension to the 15th date. Bearing in mind, Orihuela Costa has the largest number of British residents living permanently, the greatest number in Spain, possibly on this planet outside the UK.
We hope the British Government will urgently find out why the key part to this process was the recipient of the letters, have not arrived?
I understand and acknowledge you will forward this letter to Hugh Elliott the British Ambassador and Sarah-Jane Morris The British Consul for their urgent attention as indicated in your email, this situation affects all British subjects in Spain.
Thousands of British and other non EU citizens are being denied their rights, which is why we write to you, once again, to request the British government investigate this very serious issue as a matter of urgency.
We look forward to your response by return.
Kind regards
Norah Bond
PIOC – Consultant / Press
