On Wednesday, the National Commission for Electoral Monitoring and Guarantees was held in Bogotá, in which the National Civil Status Registry announced what strategies it will implement for the next elections, which will be held on May 29. According to the entity, the new guidelines will provide “full guarantees to all candidates, campaigns, political sectors and the general public”.
The first of them has to do with voting juries. The Registrar requested the Office of the Prosecutor and the Attorney General's Office to determine the possible criminal or disciplinary liability of the juries of the 5,109 voting stations that presented irregularities in the last legislative elections on 13 March. To this end, it sent the entities a detailed report.
The Registrar also included new criteria in the procedure for selecting and appointing voting juries; something that political groups had previously requested. “This strategy diversifies the composition of the voting stations, ensuring that all the members of the polls are distributed in a heterogeneous manner with different political affiliations,” the entity explained.
On the other hand, it excluded from its databases citizens who carried out this work at the tables that presented the irregularities.
Changes to Form E-14
The ballot has generated controversy over the irregularities that were presented in the congressional elections. In fact, recently the same national registrar, Alexander Vega, confirmed that there were more than 1,000 votes of difference between the electoral pre-count and the final count, which generated a high level of mistrust towards the entity and the guarantees of democratic exercise.
Vega also stated that much of the irregularities occurred due to the errors of the voting juries on form E-14. For that reason, they reported the following changes:
1. The Registry added new elements to facilitate the correct identification of the registered presidential formulas: for the first time the candidate's photo will be taken, the box corresponding to the logos and symbols of the political groups will be expanded and clear and broad fonts will be used for the names of the candidate for the presidency.
2. The three copies of the E-14 form will have a different color: the claveros will be green, the delegates will be with vinotinto and the ones for transmission will be black.
3. For the capitation of the voting juries chosen, an emphasis will be placed on the completion of the ballot record. These will include that asterisks will be the only symbol allowed to fill in the blank boxes of the different bodies of the E14; the decision was made at the request of several political organizations in contention.
4. Each of the voting stations will have a memory sheet with an example of an E-14 filled out in accordance with official instructions. “In addition, a unified campaign has been concluded with political organizations and supervisory bodies, especially the Office of the Procurator, to disseminate official instructions to all actors in the process,” said the Registrar's Office.
5. In the transmission process, it will be an obligation in the protocol to dictate for the second time the E-14 in its entirety.
Other measures
The entity developed two technical tables with the political directories for electoral witnesses. In addition, “a memorandum was issued which establishes the procedure for nominating electoral witnesses, the activities to be performed by political directories and the functions of electoral officers,” explained the Registrar's Office.
Faced with the problems that arose on the InfoVoters' website and application, the Registry Office will strengthen and expand its transmission channels. In addition, it will schedule sessions with systems auditors accredited by the different political campaigns to review the source code of the auxiliary, zonal, municipal and general counting base software.
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