The custody of votes in the legislative elections, questioned by Gustavo Petro, opens debate

The opposition leader and presidential candidate of the Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro, announced that he would not attend the electoral debates on the National Civil Status Registry's proposal to conduct a general recount of votes, arguing that the chain of custody of the votes that had been counted had been lost.

The statements of the left-wing senator, who leads the polls on voting intention in Colombia, coincided with those of former Constitutional Court magistrate José Gregorio Hernández Galindo, who said that the proposal of the Registrar General, Alexander Vega, was not indicated, who finally did not submit it to the Commission on Tuesday National Electoral Guarantees, because “the chain of custody was not guaranteed”.

“There is a risk, especially that the east is increased to the extent that the care of the exchanges on which the votes are deposited, that is, what corresponds to a verification of their absolute chain of custody is not guaranteed, because the chain ended last Saturday. So there is a risk that there may be fraud. For that reason and because the judges have already given their opinion and there is nothing objective that could question what they said, it is not explained how a recount will be carried out,” the former magistrate told the international media outlet CNN.

Likewise, Senator-elect Ariel Ávila, who rejected this proposal, which was endorsed by President Iván Duque, indicated that on Saturday the process of scrutiny was concluded in the national territory and since that day the bags with the votes have been found

“The stock exchanges have been alone since Saturday, kept mainly in municipal or departmental registrars run by registrars belonging to political clans. That is, one could say that there is no chain of custody there,” said the senator of the Green Alliance.

However, the expert on electoral law, Hollman Ibáñez, noted that the voting chain has not been lost, noting that the polling chain has several degrees, and that of the Senate has not been completed in all departments of the country, which is verified by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

In this regard, he indicated that once the zonal or municipal counting is over, the specifications are available to the next counting commission, either municipal or departmental, and the votes are supposedly in the custody of the registrars of these localities.

“Once the departmental count is over, the electoral documents remain in charge and under the responsibility of the CNE in the three-key ark of the Registrar's Office. Petro also does not know that each polling station has an identification that corresponds to the distribution matrix and with it it can be determined whether the votes, the E-10, 11, 12 and 14, correspond to a certain table or not. So talking about breaking the chain of custody is fallacious,” concluded the Founder and President of the Colombian Electoral College.

However, the opposition leader was not the only one who questioned the guarantees of the voting chain of votes, in elections that were marked by repeated inconsistencies that were denounced by different communities.

KEEP READING