General elections are held in Spain every four years, the regional and municipal ones. And every five years they play the European elections. For years we have been able to unsubscribe from electoral advertising so that political parties stop sending us envelopes with their ballots. Although many do not know how unsubscribe from electoral propaganda, and here we explain it. We will be able to do it through the Internet or in person and no letters will reach our mailbox.
On election days, citizens will go to the polls and will have the option to vote for their representatives. They can take the ballots right there or they can go with the ones that have been sent to the mailbox through electoral propaganda if they have not unsubscribed. .
There is a lot of debate about why this is still being done. The reason is that there are many people who are not connected to the news, either due to time or difficulty in keeping informed through modern communication methods, but who still have the right to vote. The electoral campaign is aimed at them, with the posters, presentations and the massive mailing of letters as part of it. So for the time being the sending of letters is not going to stop for now, but we can ensure that no electoral propaganda letter is sent to us if we register on time.
How to ask not to be sent letters with electoral propaganda
The first thing is to clarify that for the moment We can only prevent electoral propaganda by physical mail, while for now emails and digital profiling is somewhat more complex.
The first thing is that we will need a electronic certificate or a Cl @ ve PIN to be able to carry out the procedures, something necessary for the management of many administrative procedures. If we do not have it, we can do it in person at the town halls, at the provincial delegations of the Electoral Census Office and also at the consular offices if you live abroad.
To do this, once we have the Cl @ ve PIN or the electronic certificate, we will have to go to the website of the National Institute of Statistics, which is where the parties get the postal addresses for sending electoral information. It is one of the ways they obtain data for the promotion of their electoral programs, and only and exclusively for those purposes, for reasons of data protection. Any other use would entail a fine. Once inside we will have to select the section that says "Appearance in copies for political parties» and change to «Excluded«.
This will mean that our data for electoral propaganda will not be sent by post. Thus, we will no longer receive letters from any party, with the possibility of fines for parties that fail to comply with these exemptions. This process is somewhat complicated, especially if we want to do it electronically. But he assures us that they are not going to send us electoral propaganda. Yes, they will continue to send us the census cards with information on where we have to go to vote, since that does not depend on the political parties.
Each person will have their reasons for not wanting to receive electoral propaganda and there will be others who want these letters sent home. But now we have the option to choose if we want to stop receiving it, but remember that this will help us for these elections and subsequent ones, as this preference will remain until we make a change. If we choose to turn them off for future elections, we will have to turn them back on later if we want cards from future elections.
How to ask not to send us notifications with electoral spam
With the change in laws, it was allowed that postal letters were not sent to us, but permission was also given by default to the parties to make political profiling according to our political preferences. Because it is not linked to a NIF, CIF or NIE, it is difficult to make a single option, as it would imply complicated data transfers to carry out the procedures.
For now there is only one way to ensure that they do not do the political profiling, and that is to send an email to each and every one of the political parties, who should have a person responsible for these issues. There are several forms to request this, but a generic one should work for us.
Another option that is emerging a lot, but whose functionality is not guaranteed, is the Friday List, which is inspired by the Robinson List. This last list is known for being a registry so that they do not send us commercial calls, something that from personal experience is working, but it is not infallible. As for the Friday List, it is a project that has emerged recently with the assistance of various specialists in data management for commercial and legal purposes.
Keep in mind that It's not an official list. Well, it is a project in the same way that the Robinson List began. Although it is an opportunity for political parties not to take data that has not been granted. For this to work, many people have to agree to entrust their data so that the parties do not do the political profiling and a crowdfunding has to come out asking for €63.000 to finish the development and pass the maintenance on to an association that can take care of the maintenance. of this service.
As we can see, with the changes in laws we have won in some parts and lost in others. We can already ask that they not send us letters, which means a small saving for the coffers of public administrations and political parties, which will no longer send letters that have no prospect of prospering.
On the other hand, political profiling is controversial at best, since they try to make a political profile without the consent of the people and since there is not so much combination of criteria and data to certify that we do not give consent, it is not an easy task. At least these last messages can be blocked more easily, but it is still uncomfortable trying to make a political profile with our ideals and how to exploit it. At least we know that we have some control and that European authorities have already been notified about it for review.
Why is it interesting that they do not send me electoral propaganda?
For several reasons:
- Savings for political parties, who will have to send fewer letters.
- Desaturate postal services.
- Privacy.
- Not finding political propaganda in the mailbox when you expect a letter.
- Paper savings by printing fewer letters and envelopes.
