EEC goes to the legislature for $ 2 million to hold special lobbyist elections

The State Election Commission (CEE) decided on Tuesday that it will go to the Legislative Assembly to request money for the event that will take place on May 16, during which six lobbyists will be elected as state.

However, the amount to be requested has not yet been determined, although the President of the EEC, Francisco Rosado Colomer, estimates it could reach $ 2 million. However, Rosado Colomer warned that if they don’t have the money, the EEC won’t be able to hold the special elections.

“My budget manager gets together to see how much we can expect the event to cost if we don’t do the manual check,” said Rosado Colomer in an interview with The new day.

“The Commission does not have the resources to organize the event. We are not yet at the point of ‘I can’t take it anymore’. I have not yet gotten to the point, as they say in ancient Castile, of the roadblock file. I can continue to do tasks that don’t incur the expense of the required funds, ”he added.

The CEE’s move to go to legislature arises after last week’s Fiscal Oversight Board (JSF)He twice denied him an allocation of $ 6.6 million for the event by letter and referred them to the House to request the money.

As the clock is ticking, Rosado Colomer said he did not know when he would formalize his request to the Chamber, as he must appear in court as a witness during these days in the dispute of the San Juan mayor’s office between Manuel Natal and Miguel Romero.

He explained that the amount of money needed for the special election could drop significantly because it would no longer be done with electronic counting, significantly reducing other items, such as the cost of ballots. Law 167-20 making the special election feasible specified that there must be electronic control.

Rosado Colomer said that in his opinion he should not go to the legislature to change the statute. “There is a piece of law that allows the EEG to handle the event to make it viable. Moreover, from my point of view, the laws cannot enforce the fulfillment of the impossible, ”he said.

The draw has been completed

Today, Tuesday, the EEC organized the lottery of the positions on the ballot of the 10 candidates for four positions to lobby in the Federal Chamber and two in the United States Senate.

The draw was made illegal because it should have happened last Monday. On the same Monday, March 15, Law 167-20 required the EEC to receive and validate the statements of support from the applicants.

“In the same way that the law cannot require impossible actions to be performed, it also cannot be absurd and approvals must be processed to certify candidates. There is no other way, ” said Rosado Colomer to explain why they did that on Tuesday and not March 15.

The statesman-leader Miriam Ramírez de Ferrer gave the CEE only 24% of the endorsements. But today she announced that she will continue in the race as a candidate by direct nomination.

Zoraida Buxó, Víctor Pérez, Roberto López and Melinda Romero were able to provide the 3,000 statements of support needed to lobby the Senate. They appear in that order on the ballot paper. Meanwhile, Roberto Lefranc, Elizabeth Torres, Adriel Vélez, María “Mayita” Meléndez, Jorge Rodríguez and Ricardo Marrero have expressed support for their efforts to lobby the House of Representatives. They appear on the ballot paper in the same order.

In total there were 15 candidates for the election event.