The debut of the Single Paper Ballot (BUP) was very promisingIt was agreed quickly and the new instrument was easy to understand for citizens, so that The proportion of invalid votes nationwide was just under 2.5% when it was expected that it would exceed 4% due to the attendant change in uses and customs. It also facilitated control at polling stations, resulting in few differences between preliminary sampling by the executive branch and final control by the electoral justice system.
The new voting tool gives voters more freedom to choose their options and frees them from long lists They were more functional for political leaders and clientelistic practices that compromised the transparency of the representative system.; For this reason, since 2007 National Electoral Chamber recommended its application and called on political forces to reflect on this change. This was joined by various civil society organizations that advocated for more participatory change.
Let us recall that this year the national government suspended internal party elections for international economic reasons and increased the number of voters per table from 300 to 400. Added to this was the massive absence of table authorities, which led to electoral confusion and encouraged the transfer of internal elections to the general elections an unusual number of “ballot thefts” that the current single-ballot system prevents.
On this occasion the electoral chamber met Council of Political Parties and be Civil Society Forum to collect suggestions for improvements that were implemented in the 2009 election and restored confidence in our traditional electoral system the appointment of court delegates in schools and the establishment of additional darkrooms with admission ticket storage in case of shortages and other irregular practices; But from that moment he also raised his authoritative voice for a change to the model already applied to Argentines living abroad and voters deprived of their freedom.
We had to wait until last year for Congress to take up the Society’s message and pass the law implementing the new model for national elections; The occasion of an interim general election, in which national representatives were elected and only eight provinces also elected senators, was a good opportunity to put this to the test. It was necessary to overcome several new situations caused by the replacement of a candidate for the position of official representative in the province of Buenos Aires and some difficulties in other provinces that led to the reprinting of ballot papers with defects.
What was striking was that the… Ministry of the Interior delegate to him post the commissioning of the companies responsible for printing the ballot papers and registers as well as the direct commissioning of the company responsible for the preliminary examination. There are things to improve: the cost of the tickets was high and the design of names, symbols, colors and photos needs to be improved.
But the positive experience of October 26 does not obscure the need for an analysis that examines how the BUP would function in the context of a presidential election that also elects legislators, provincial governors and other provincial authorities. Our country has a presidential model and that means that presidential elections tend to have a higher level of participation, but also confrontation.
A first important consideration to take into account is that on this occasion the PASSED and that also had an impact on the design of the ballot papers, so that in some districts the ballot papers were very long. In Cordova There were 18 candidates and 15 in the province of Buenos Aires, some of whom belonged to the same political sector. The problem was that the factions had adapted their organizational statutes to PASO and their suspension – for the only time – left them without an up-to-date plan to resolve their differences.
The electoral chamber reminds us of this in an agreement Political parties must respect the internal democracy required by Article 38 of the National Constitution. But few groups have heeded the call to introduce a mechanism for this purpose and this must now be addressed, either by replacing PASO or by amending this law with other specific features, such as that the internal ones are voluntary and not mandatory.
Another problem of institutional importance is that the current BUP does not allow national and provincial elections to be held simultaneously It is something that should be studied carefully. They face presidential and parliamentary elections as the current model promotes the separation of provincial elections for their local authorities, including the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and to the province of the same name. In cases where voting took place on the same day, the elections were not held simultaneously, but rather “simultaneously” with differentiated ballot boxes and ballot papers, as in Mendoza, Santiago del Estero And Catamarcawhich, among other things, required complex and expensive logistics.
This is not a side problem, but an institutional political design that would lead to a Mexican-style decentralization of electoral processes instead of their Brazilian-style concentration, to name just two federal countries on our continent. The latest model is better, more efficient and more reliable. The eventual balkanization of our electoral system would give many governors the opportunity to use their own discretion as to which electoral system to use, which is already happening in some provinces with motto laws and couplings.
Another very serious problem is drug trafficking, a reality that is present among us and was also evident in this election.. In our country there is a national funding control legislation that controls the federal justice system, but there is no corresponding legislation in the provinces. The electoral chamber has also pointed this out in its agreements and announcements. This needs to be taken very seriously because The targets of drug trafficking are territorial in nature and the Latin American experience shows that they are usually focused on local elections..
It remains to be hoped that the interests of citizens will in future outweigh the interests of the clientelistic apparatus and that both provinces and municipalities will join the BUP.
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