Infobae Colombia clarifies to the electorate what will happen if votes are cast for these two candidates who gave up their aspirations in recent weeks
From the National Registry of Civil Status they warned that due to time it is not possible to reprint the cards. Image: Registraduría.
On Sunday, May 29, Colombians have an appointment with democracy, to elect the next president and vice president, who will govern the destinies of the country for the next four years.
After a campaign full of attacks, remarks, accusations, one or another proposal, eternal and soporific debates, polls that do not agree with each other and interviews with the candidates, who toured the country, some filling public squares and others, adding thousands of views on its campaign content on networks, there are still some doubts in the electorate a few hours before the polls open.
For this first round of the presidential elections, Colombians will be able to choose between six candidates who aspire to occupy the House of Nariño as of August 7, 2022. Although, at the beginning of the campaign there were more than 30 candidates, the The list was decanted to arrive at the eight that will appear on the card that will be delivered to each of the 81,925 tables, which have been installed in the 11,034 voting stations that exist, both in the national territory and abroad.
“Colombians will be able to choose between six candidates”, but eight will appear. This small discrepancy occurs because two of the candidates gave up their aspiration in recent weeks after the ballots had been printed, which at this point cannot be changed.
In this regard , the registrar Alexander Vega explained that the cards are not only already printed but that “are already abroad, we managed to get the kits to Shanghai and Russia. Tomorrow we will open with the Foreign Ministry at 3 in the afternoon, the election day abroad in New Zealand. We only have one drawback, in Shanghai, despite the fact that the kits arrived, there is a closure due to a pandemic, so I don’t know if Colombian citizens are allowed to go to the consulate to vote, the rest of the consulates operate normally ”.
That is why on the ballot, together with the candidates Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez, Federico Gutiérrez and Rodrigo Lara, Sergio Fajardo and Luis Guillermo Murillo, John Milton Rodríguez and Sandra Torres, and Enrique Gómez and Carlos Cuartas, will appear the former candidates Ingrid Betancourt and Luis Pérez, with their respective presidential formulas.
In this regard, in recent days, the registrar Alexander Vega, during a press conference that he called to explain different aspects in relation to the presidential elections, confirmed that the two candidates will appear on the ballot.
“Taking into account that the electoral cards are already printed with several candidates who requested their withdrawal, in the case of Luis Pérez and Íngrid Betancourt, the instruction that has been given to the voting juries is that they must compute the votes of both withdrawn candidates. . Then, the scrutinizing commissions, already with instructions from the National Electoral Council, will define if these votes will go as unmarked votes, but that decision is made by the CNE”, clarified the registrar Vega.
The registrar also explained that the voting juries should count the votes received by these candidates as if they were participating normally, but that their votes will not be added to the campaigns they are now supporting.
“It is ruled out that these votes join the campaigns they support, remember that there are printed E14 forms with the two withdrawn candidates and there are ballots, what they do is that the votes are computed and counted in the table as if they were still participating, but already in the count, the Electoral Council will compute those votes as unmarked cards”.