The Zone Electoral Board has dismissed the appeal presented by Barcelona en Comú before the recount carried out last Friday. The Comuns called for the revision of two tables of which they demanded 150 votes -in a school Old Town– and 40 votes -in Horta-, as well as that of the 6,400 invalid votes registered in the municipal elections in Barcelona. The appeal filed has also been dismissed. voxthis focused only on the review of the null vote.
The decision of the Zone Electoral Board comes four days after it proceeded to count the results, a process in which it was ruled out, as announced by the president of the body, the judge Joan Marsal, review the invalid vote that had not been challenged during election day. In the recount, the Comuns failed to cut the 141 votes that separated him from the PSC and that the tenth councilor could have given him, leaving the Socialists with nine. In the end, the count increased the advantage in favor of the PSC, which was 342 votes ahead of those of Ada Colau.
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Before the decision, Barcelona in Comú and Vox may file another appeal with the Central Electoral Board. If they did and it was also dismissed, they would have the judicial route. If this path is chosen, the investiture of the next mayor of Barcelona would be delayed from June 17 to July 7.
The Zone Electoral Board answers the request of Vox and the Comuns de a review of all invalid votes arguing that this measure is not foreseen: “Article 106.1 of the LOREG establishes that during the scrutiny the Board cannot annul any act or vote. Its attributions are limited to verifying without any discussion the count and the sum of the votes admitted in the corresponding tables according to the minutes or copies of the minutes of the tables, only being able to correct the mere material or factual and arithmetic errors, except when there are double and different minutes or when the votes that appear in the minutes exceed the voters of the table & rdquor ;, reads the text.
The resolution also specifies what Judge Marsal has already announcedthat Invalid votes are only reviewed if there is a claim during the voting process: “In relation to null and blank votes, the Board’s criteria has always been that it must be verified if the sum of them together with the validly cast votes corresponded to the number of people who, according to the minutes, have voted& rdquor ;.
What the LOREG says
In other words, an arithmetic check is made, but not the content, with one exception: “The envelopes with null and blank votes (…) should only be opened to examine their content in the event that the minutes of envelope 1 show make any observations about them or any claim had been recordedin accordance with the provisions of art. 98.3 of the LOREG & rdquor ;.
Vox based its appeal on the fact that it presented two ballots to the municipal ballots, one with the initials in a box and the other without, and on the suspicion that some were considered invalid due to that difference, when the Zone Electoral Board previously considered of the elections that both were perfectly legal. Vox had ballots printed with and without a box. For voting by mail, he used boxed ballots. To place them in schools, without box. At some tables, both one and the other format were accepted as valid. In others, no one noticed the difference. In some, representatives of other parties warned of the nuance and those that had a box were declared null and void.
The Board also rejects the request of Barcelona en Comú de compute 150 votes from a table in Ciutat Vella and 40 from one in Horta. The Comuns requested it because the record of one of their representatives reflected that support, but the resolution indicates that The original handwritten record prevails. In any case, those 190 votes would not have served to reverse the situation. It would have lacked another 152 votes, which perhaps trusted the review of the null vote.
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Regarding Vox’s claim, that he was 1,500 votes away from snatching a councilor from the PSC and thus achieve the third, if successful, it would have left the Comuns and the Socialists in a tie at nine. And they would have prevented those of Jaume Collboni and those of Xavier Trias They added 21 councilors, the absolute majority. It is one of the potential pacts, in the absence of knowing if Trias chooses to start the journey of his government alone, with the 11 councilors of his candidacy, or seeks alliances now and does not wait for the general elections to do so.
PSC claim
The Zone Electoral Board does agree with the PSC, which presented a simple claim because after detecting errors that harmed the socialists in two tables, only those of one were corrected. The text of the Zone Electoral Board indicates that it will proceed to do so with the other.