Waiting for voters in Villasdardo
The morning begins in Villasdardo (Salamanca), a municipality with 24 registered voters and 18 registered voters who can vote. Alicia Pérez, 34 years old, is the mayor (of the PP) and is almost always the president of the only electoral table, installed in City Hall. “It’s always up to us, with how few we are,” he jokes with his father, Alicio Pérez. The councilor, an agricultural engineer on the Board, speaks alongside her father, 62, who works in the fields and is today an electoral member. The town is surrounded by agricultural farms, in several of which cows graze. All the neighbors are ranchers. This is an example of the small municipalities scattered throughout Castilla y León, a community where depopulation is very pronounced and with an important agricultural sector.
At the moment, no one has come to vote in Villasdardo. Pérez already knows that she will spend the entire day at the polling station because one of those registered, who lives in Salamanca, notified her yesterday that she cannot vote. Also in the room is Marcos Mena, 52 years old, a City Hall laborer and native of Guatemala, who has helped arrange the ballots, envelopes and other belongings. He is originally from Guatemala and he cannot vote.
