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During this Tuesday the president of the Board of Directors of the Electoral Service, Patricio Santamaría, referred to the decision taken by the instance in relation to the vote of people with COVID-19, which to date had not been resolved, existing in parallel to the date some initiatives in the parliament to clarify this problem.
According to his words, the quorum within the council to innovate in alternative mechanisms would not have been reached, despite some proposals that had been raised, both by Santamaría, as well as by opposition parliamentarians.
In the middle of Tuesday’s session of the Constitutional Commission of the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies, Santamaría said: “As things are done in a democracy, regardless of my personal position, I must represent the position of the council, and The Board of Directors has estimated, for reasons I imagine very well founded, that it is not possible at this point – and it could even generate a situation of delegitimacy – to improvise or to seek some mechanism other than the one that exists today that requires that the vote be personal, secret and in person “.
“For this reason, in a meeting we had with the Executive, We did get an agreement that we had not had on another occasion, and it is an agreement with the President of the Republic (…) to assume a renewal of something that the Electoral Service has been asking for for a long time which implies precisely establishing voting mechanisms different from the face-to-face mechanism ”, he argued.
Along these lines, he pointed out what is missing is “to definitively renew Law 18,700 that arose in the dictatorship, and that although it has undergone some changes, today requires somehow to get in tune with the times, and we have to consider the early voting; we also have to consider the domiciliary vote; we also have to constitute and see the postal vote. Other voting mechanisms that exist and have been developing in this third wave of democracy that emerged in the early 90’s, late 80’s ”.
“Since 2013 (…) we have been requesting legal modifications that allow us to vote for people deprived of liberty, to whom today their human rights are being violated and their sentence is aggravated, because they maintain their political rights to choose, be elected and also to be able to participate directly in definitions or decisions of the country, “he said.
Finally, the president of the Servel valued the project presented by the deputy Leonardo Soto (PS) and those who sponsor it, and nevertheless, added that “we are no longer in time to apply it for the plebiscite of October 25”.
“But in a year 2021 where all the authorities of the country will be elected at the municipal, regional level, including regional governors at some point in 2021, and the deputies, senators, the President of the Republic or President of the Republic, and in addition – eventually, if approved – conventional constituents, I believe that it is essential that we have a renewed system where different mechanisms that can also allow us to face the situation of people who today cannot reach or approach the voting places and their polling stations to effectively comply with a right that is guaranteed, not only in the Constitution, but has also been considered a human right, “he argued.
Meanwhile, the Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency Cristián Monckeberg, did not rule out that for next year voting from a distance could be implemented.
Despite what has been indicated by the Servel and also by the Government, The House Constitution Committee agreed to vote anyway on the project that seeks to establish remote voting for the October plebiscite.
This initiative was approved in general by the instance, with the argument that “there is still time to legislate on the matter.”
Along these lines, the Committee on the Interior Government of the Chamber It also approved the bill that establishes voting by postal mail, an initiative that will now be reviewed in particular.
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