Congress: Adriana Tudela and Alejandro Cavero seek voluntary voting from 2026

The Congress of the Republic seeks to make voting voluntary from the general elections of 2026. The parliamentarians of Avanza País, Alejandro Cavero and Adriana Tudela, presented this bill with the aim of reversing citizen absenteeism in recent electoral processes.

For this reason, the “Constitutional Reform Bill Recognizing Free and Voluntary Voting” proposes to amend article 31 of the Political Constitution of Peru, so that voting for general, regional and municipal elections is voluntary.

To achieve this, Cavero and Tudela seek Congress to repeal the provisions of articles 9, 17, 21, 26 of Law No. 26859, Organic Law on Elections, with regard to mandatory voting in any type of general, regional or municipal election.

It would therefore provide for the other regulations and regulations that oppose the proposed constitutional reform to be adapted.

“This initiative is part of a package of political reform projects that I plan to present over the course of this week. What I am proposing is that the vote be exercised voluntarily, it is not possible that, in Peru, which is a right, it is exercised under duress of fines. At the same time, a right cannot be an obligation,” Congresswoman Tudela told Canal N.

“It's a bill that seeks to uphold a principle. The right to vote must be free, otherwise it ceases to be a right,” he continued. He also indicated that they are proposing this change because they want political parties to do serious work to capture the citizens' vote.

“We believe that real work will strengthen the relationship of representation between authorities and citizens, which is unfortunately not happening today. With compulsory voting, political parties have a captive audience in the background, because everyone has to go and vote and they don't have to make an effort to convince citizens to vote for one party or another,” said Tudela.

When asked about whether citizens are ready to vote voluntarily, the Avanza País parliamentarian defended her initiative saying that “if we want to see changes in our political class, we have to make a change in the electoral system.” “If we continue to do everything the same we will not find different results. This is a way to strengthen democracy,” he said.

“With a democratic culture we are going to have better representatives and we are going to get stronger political parties. In addition, we will get the political class to defend ideas and principles, not just interests,” he added.

Finally, he dismissed the political reform that Congresswoman and Minister of Labour, Betssy Chávez, is trying to achieve, who presented a bill that, in the case of the president will be vacated, general elections are called for everyone to leave.

“The reform of the minister seems to me rather to prevent a possible vacancy at all costs than to make a substantive reform. The vice-presidents exist for something, if the president is vacated, the general elections would not make any sense, so why do we elect a vice president,” he argued.

“On the subject of the advance of elections, in general, I think that, if that is the only way out, it is something that I would support. But it is not the best way out of the crisis we are experiencing, I think that the best way out is vacancy, it is constitutional and democratic. Predicted for situations that we are experiencing today,” he said.

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