The judge Rebecca De Leon Rios rejected the election request submitted by the former mayor of Aguadilla Yanitsia Irizarry, with the aim of invalidating about 50 mixed ballots that were allegedly inconsistent with the provisions of this type of suffrage.
“Consistent with what has been said and given that the validity of the challenged mixed ballots has been issued, there are no allegations in the lawsuit that, considered true, suggest the likelihood that the outcome of the election of the position of mayor of Aguadilla Municipality, would change in favor of appellant Yanitsia Irizarry Méndez, the certification issued by the CEE confirms that the declared mayor chooses to Julio Roldán Concepción”, Concluded De León Ríos.
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According to the text of the sentence, Irizarry had stated in his lawsuit that 1,408 mixed ballots were awarded in the municipal elections, “which could be invalid”.
The former novoprogresista mayor argued that ballots that contained a mark under a party’s insignia, but in which the voter had not made additional markings in addition to a candidate from that community, should be invalidated.
On these ballots, the seats for which the voter has not assigned a mark to the candidate of the party for which the insignia was marked are displayed.
“In support of its control (Irizarry) argued that during the general inquiry several officials noted that over fifty (50) municipal ballots that did not meet the definition of mixed ballot in the electoral law were assessed as such,” the ruling said of the court. .
According to the determination of the judge of the Court of San JuanIrizarry tried to invalidate votes that did not necessarily fit the description of the well-known “pivazos”. In the pivazos, the voter votes for a badge, but makes marks for candidates from other parties for all seats in the ballot.
The text of the Elections Act invalidates the pivazo vote, which became relevant to the state vote in 2004, when deciding on the candidacy for governor in favor of Aníbal Acevedo Vilá.
De León Ríos chose to address the merits of Irizarry’s objection and rejected Roldán Concepción’s argument that the former mayor had failed to properly inform candidates for the municipal legislature. The magistrate decided that only Roldán Concepción, as the challenged candidate, should be notified within the five-day time limit set by the electoral law.
The judge also set aside the new mayor’s proposal that Irizarry’s challenge was intended to challenge a “res judicata” as the former family secretary ordered a judicial review of the administrative decision of the family in December. State Election Commission (CEE) the mixed votes confirmed this.
At the time, the San Juan court did not address the merits because Irizarry did not include all candidates for the mayor of Aguadilla as defendants and because “ we concluded that our jurisdiction to resolve disputes related to mixed votes began as soon as the investigation was completed and the candidate who prevailed got certified, which had not happened ”.
According to the results available on the CEE portal, Roldán Concepción, of the People’s Democratic Party, received 8,845 votes, beating Irizarry by just 40 votes.