The Way of the Vote
A few days before the elections this Sunday, November 19, a new controversy has entered the public agenda: one of the parties competing in the runoff decided to deliver fewer ballots to the Electoral Justice to be distributed at the polling stations, alleging the fear that the ballots would disappear and citizens would not be able to exercise their right to vote. However, this claim has several inconsistencies.
The political parties are responsible for the printing of the ballots and their distribution, for which the State grants them the necessary funds to do so. For these elections, the National Electoral Directorate valued each ballot at $2.92, granting each party the equivalent of 2 and a half padrones. This means that 2 and a half ballots per party are printed for each voter.
For example, only for the category of presidency and vice-presidency in the PASO 2023, each party was granted a little more than 103 million pesos to be used exclusively for the printing of ballots. Although the parties may decide to print fewer ballots than those established by the Law, if they do so, they are obliged to return the unearned amount.
The parties may choose to distribute the ballots on their own or give them to the Electoral Board to take them to the voting centers, distributing bundles of 350 ballots for each table plus 2 extra bundles for contingencies, or four more if the center has more than 9 tables.
Even if the Electoral Justice were given a bundle of 350 ballots per table -which would be enough to cover all the people who are going to vote-, the party would retain a total of one and a half ballot lists to dispose of freely, either by distributing them the days prior to the election or by using them as contingency ballots during the electoral process, with which not only would there be no lack of ballots, but there would be ballots left over.
The problem lies elsewhere. The system ensures that each voter has his or her party ballot available to vote, but why would the parties not deliver the necessary ballots to the electoral authorities? Wouldn’t this be a waste of resources and, above all, a possible “black box”? According to an investigation by El Ruido and Connectas, in this year’s PASO only one list out of the 1,818 that ran for election returned the surplus of unprinted ballots. Moreover, 8 billion pesos went to ballots of parties that did not exceed 1.5% of the votes.
It is because of things like these that many organizations have been asking, for a long time, for a Single Paper Ballot system. But it is also true that the current procedure is reliable and has so far reflected the will of the electorate, and there is not a single indication of fraud. In fact, sometimes there are those who prefer to raise the specter of fraud rather than accept that they were not an option for the citizens.
