Vote review in 17 provinces would take about 15 days for the National Electoral Council | Politics | News

February 14, 2021 – 12:00 noon

It would take about fifteen days National Electoral Council (CNE) Follow the review of the presidential election on February 7 on the election packages of 17 of the 24 provinces.

It is the predictions that are made in the organism, after agreement with the presidential candidates Yaku Pérez, from Pachakutik (PK), and Guillermo Lasso, from the CREO-PSC alliance, at the meeting on February 12, in which the five election officials and the Election Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS)

Six points concern the agreement reached in the Electoral Council on the revision of the votes in 17 provinces

To dispel the election fraud allegations Pérez claims that he said would influence him to pass the April 11 vote, the CNE pledged to “ review ” 100% of the votes in Guayas Province, including the minutes . with novelty, and 50% of the vote in 16 other provinces. It was unofficially reported that these provinces would be those of the Sierra and the coast. From the Sierra: Azuay, Bolívar, Loja, Cañar, Carchi, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, Pichincha, Tungurahua, Imbabura. From the coast: El Oro, Esmeraldas, Manabí, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Los Ríos and Santa Elena.

It was clarified that this will be an “accounting survey of no statistical significance”; In order to do this, the plenary plans to approve an instruction and schedule next Monday, and there will be citizen surveillance.

The Council has not clarified the implications that this task will have no statistical significance, but it will have to determine which electoral packages will be chosen from the host committees and from which constituencies, for example.

Likewise, it must have physical spaces for the transmission of election packages and that they be revised; in addition to the personnel who will perform this task. However, the Ministry of Economy and Finance announced the allocation of economic resources for this purpose on 11 February last.

The Democracy Code does not establish the procedure for reviewing the vote that the CNE agreed with the candidates, so the legal mechanism is sought to integrate it into a resolution approved by the plenary and to protect it from legality.

Constitutional Court rejects Yaku Pérez’s demand to end control of provincial electoral councils

Only Article 138 of the standard allows the polling stations to order verification of the number of votes in a ballot box in three cases.

When a record is rejected by the computer system due to numerical inconsistencies; when the signatures of the chairman or secretary of the receiving board entitled to vote are missing; or when one of the political subjects provides a copy of the BOM that does not coincide with the BOM.

The second paragraph of Article 141 states that the national control will consist of examining the reports prepared by the electoral councils to verify the results and correct any inconsistencies “when necessary”. And the “Council may order that such verifications or verifications as it deems necessary be carried out.”

According to official data, the investigation in the 17 provinces chosen for the review was 100% complete, and at the same time the CNE organized a public hearing to hear the minutes prepared before the results were released.

But with the decision, the process can affect the election calendar. The law allows ten days to carry out the check, counting from the next day of the elections, the deadline of which is next Wednesday. The CNE can authorize an extraordinary extension.

In this case, the current timetable stipulated that on 16 February the minutes of the dignity review raised by the provincial administrations would be approved and that the results would be communicated to the political organizations the following day.

The presentation of objections to the numerical results was submitted before 18 and 19 February and the decisions on this until 22 February.

Between 24 and 26 February, it was planned that the political topics would submit subjective calls to the Controversial Election College (TCE)And, until March 15, that these have a resolution.

This, because the March 16 the election campaign begins for the second round, in which so far is the only predefined candidate with the preliminary tests Andrés Arauz, of the Union for Hope (UNES) alliance, that reached 32.70% of the votes nationally, with 99.71% of (valid) endorsements last Saturday. (I)