The Electoral Service (Servel) held a meeting with the National Chamber of Commerce (CNC) and the Chilean Chamber of Shopping Centers, represented by José Pakomio and Katia Trusich, respectively.
The objective of the meeting was to address Servel’s proposal to hold the next regional and municipal elections on October 27 in two days.
Andrés Tagle, president of the Servel Board of Directors, maintained that “the The meeting is framed in the objective of seeking what is most convenient for the voter, and that the elections generate the least possible impact on daily life. In this sense, the unions’ proposals not to limit commercial activity on election days must be evaluated, and it is essential that measures be proposed that facilitate the electoral participation of all people who work that weekend.”
For his part, the president of the National Chamber of Commerce, José Pakomio, stated that “for us this meeting has been a great opportunity to exchange ideas and long-term reflections on what should be the best way to carry out electoral processes. It has been very pleasing to see that our perspective and that of Servel have many points of confluence, where what prevails is the union of efforts to facilitate participation in the democratic life of the electorate, and at the same time, safeguard the functioning of economic activities in full freedom.”
Meanwhile, the president of the Chamber of Shopping Centers, Katia Trusich, said that “we value this meeting, which was very productive to explore paths that allow us to end the restriction that affects thousands of medium and small business owners, workers and consumers in commerce. , which cannot operate on election days. It is urgent that this discrimination ends.”
Servel will continue to dialogue with the different social actors to find out their opinions and suggestions regarding the proposal to hold the elections in two days. In fact, a few days ago the Chillán Chamber of Commerce, through its president, Alejandro Lama, expressed that they were not opposed to the elections being held in two days, as long as there are no restrictions for any sector of the sector. trade.
Finish at 11:00 p.m.?
Taking up Servel’s proposal, the government has already submitted to Congress the Constitutional reform to be able to hold the elections in two days (Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27).
This request, according to Tagle, is justified “because there will be four elections, with nearly 20,000 candidates for governor, mayor, regional councilors and councillors. These last two elections have very large votes, more than 100 candidates, 46 by 70 centimeters and up to eight folds. We estimate that a voter will spend five minutes in the secret chamber and that the table, serving 12 voters at the same time, would take 2.5 minutes for each voter. With mandatory voting, we estimate a participation of 85%, which would double the number of voters compared to the May 2021 election, when 6.4 million voted. Given the above, the table would need 850 minutes, more than 14 hours, to serve the 350 voters, 85% of the registry. Starting at 9 in the morning, it would end at 11:00 p.m., with many lines, delays and inconvenience from the electorate,” he said.
Tagle added that the two-day measure was applied in May 2021, “with great success and without incidents. So we already have experience to do it,” he stressed.
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