BARCELONA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish police Sunday entered polling stations and seized ballot boxes and papers to prohibit an independence referendum in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia.
The Spanish Ministry of Interior tweeted that the actions of the police and civil guard are aimed at "seizing electoral materials" such as ballot papers and boxes, following the order that the Spanish Constitutional Court had declared the referendum illegal.
The ministry has asked for "collaboration and respect" at polling stations. However, people gathered outside some stations to prevent the police from entering, while in some others, the police prevented people from getting inside to vote.
The Spanish government also reported that the computer system, which consisted of a universal census that would allow people to vote at any polling station, was not working and people at some polling stations could not vote.
A new voting solution was announced later by the Minister of the Presidency of the Regional Government of Catalonia, Jordi Turull, who said that people could vote without envelopes at any polling station and take ballots from their homes, a move the Spanish government criticized.
The Catalan regional leader Carles Puigdemont cast his ballot at a different polling station from an assigned one as the police had blocked the polling station he had planned on going to.
The Delegate of the Spanish Government in Catalonia, Enric Millo, said that the police operation aims at fulfilling the resolutions of the Constitutional Court and High Court of Justice of Catalonia, saying that Catalonia's regional government was being "irresponsible."
