“One wonders with great anguish whether it was a mistake or not”: Uribe in front of the million votes that appeared in the ballot

The National Registrar of Civil Status, Alexander Vega, recently reported that there was a difference of one million votes between the pre-count and the counting of the past congressional elections. Faced with the news, former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez assured that these figures raise doubts about the electoral process.

The leader of the Centro Democrático party stated in an interview on Caracol Radio that he has always had confidence in the electoral system in his long political career; however, now “I have serious doubts about the elected Congress. I didn't want to personalize the issue in front of the registrar,” said the former senator of the Republic.

The former president noted that the situation has generated electoral uncertainty. “There was talk of a lack of 500,000 votes, which was 7%, when before — in other electoral processes — it was 0.5%. It's a very high jump. Now Dr. Vega himself says that there was a million votes missing, that is, the discrepancy is doubled,” Uribe explained.

In the interview with the radio, the leader of the Democratic Center also spoke about Colombia Transparente's complaint: “there have been serious institutions that have said that 300,000 juries voted twice” and recalled the cases of citizens who stated that their votes did not appear on forms E-14 published by the Registrar's Office. “We are facing some facts with serious doubts about the electoral system, given the magnitude it cannot be treated as a mistake, but something else,” he added.

Faced with irregularities, “I dare not accuse the registrar, but the facts are very serious. Faced with these facts, one wonders with great anguish whether it was a mistake or not,” said the former senator, highlighting the request for the counting of votes requested by the Democratic Center: “we thought that in the face of doubts in democracy it is better to corroborate. For democratic tranquility, that recount should have been done.”

In context: Registrar will not ask for recount of votes after guarantee desk

Álvaro Uribe also referred to the seats lost by the Democratic Center in the March 13 elections. “I've always recognized everything. I said that we lost and that I take responsibility, but the struggle for democracy continues,” he said on Caracol Radio.

Ad hoc registrar

On April 12, Senate President Juan Diego Gomez launched a new criticism of Alexander Vega in the face of the million votes that appeared and again insisted on electing an ad hoc registrar for the presidential elections. “I think this calls for the Prosecutor's Office and the Attorney General's Office to make rapid progress in the election of an ad hoc registrar who quickly puts on his shirt and prevents the presidential elections from being stolen,” Gómez explained to Blu Radio.

Although Vega assured that “there was no fraud” in the March 13 elections, the president of the Senate believes otherwise. “What we need to review here is the real fraud in the software that assigns and profiles the electoral juries,” Gómez said, considering that half the votes of difference correspond to a single party. “How did the Historical Pact know that there were more than 23,000 tables where votes were going to appear in advance?” , he added in the media.

Alexander Vega explained in RCN News that the errors that caused the voting lag and that today have it in the eye of the hurricane have to do with the design of the E-14 form and the errors that the voting juries made. “On our part, we recognize that in the design of the form we should have done at least the box of the Historical Pact,” said the registrar and considered that if we had redesigned the document, “perhaps the digitization or pre-counting would have been much easier.”

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