2023-07-09 03:08:00
The provincial elections of last Sunday June 25 left several doubts, some certainties and a future that might have changes.
Among the doubts, one is to determine the responsibilities in the failed scrutiny on the night of the vote and establish the consequences. It was speculated that last Friday the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) would announce some sanction once morest the Ocasa company, responsible for the provisional count. That hasn’t happened yet.
The TSJ announced that “it will continue, during the July fair, with the administrative investigation aimed at establishing possible responsibilities in relation to the delays detected in the development of the provisional scrutiny by the company hired for said task.”
Agreement with Ocasa
The agreement had two parts. On the one hand, Ocasa was in charge of the “development of the electoral operation” (the logistics, from the assembly of the ballot boxes, to their transfer and rescue, among various services). For this task, the agreed payment was $1,667,721,977.
But in addition, Ocasa was also in charge of the provisional scrutiny, for which he would charge $539,177,210.
It is on this second item that a sanction would be applied. And it would be proportional to what was done since, from the TSJ they explained that “not all the provisional scrutiny was poorly carried out” (it reached 94%, as detailed).
Adding both tasks, the contract with Ocasa amounts to $2,206,899,187. Until now, Justice paid him 50% of what was agreed: 30% days following the signing (May 4 of this May) and 20% two days before the elections.
Judge Marta Vidal and chambermaid Leonardo González Zamar, from the Electoral Tribunal of the Province. (Pedro Castillo / The Voice)
Turing system
What happened to the MSA company, responsible for the Turing system? With them, the Justice did not have any agreement, but it was Ocasa that subcontracted the provision of that service. “They will know how to fix each other,” they said from the TSJ regarding that relationship.
MSA, in any case, defended its task and reiterated that the problems in the provisional vote count were not due to any failure in its scanners or in the software (“Without inputs, we cannot transmit”, affirmed Sergio Angelini, the president of the company). And he regretted that, following the provincial elections, the Municipality of Córdoba has decided not to use the same system (although Ocasa will do the logistics).
Elections 2023: Sergio Angelini, president of the MSA Group, responsible for the Turing system that was used in the Córdoba vote. (The voice)
The failed scrutiny also exposed the differences within the TSJ, which included a scandal between the members Luis Rubio, Sebastián López Peña and the president of the organ, Domingo Sesín.
There was a strong discussion regarding judge Marta Vidal who, amid public and internal criticism, received Rubio’s support, something that reached the press (and angered the vocal).
The task of the magistrate in the last electoral process will mark the pulse of the TSJ in the coming days, which must decide the future of the highest electoral authority.
Will Vidal leave? His retirement is in the possession of the TSJ, although close to the magistrate they say that nobody knows where they kept it.
Beyond the internal, Vidal herself admitted that it is a question that is being asked, but made it clear that she will defend her name. “I have the strength and desire to continue,” she said last Wednesday, minutes following closing the broadcast of the official scrutiny.
Close to Vidal they also remarked that the task was not only hers. The members Leonardo González Zamar and Jorge Namur, the other two members of the Electoral Tribunal, were also present, so they hoped that the evaluation would be of joint work.
certainties
Among the certainties, there are two problems that stood out: the use of the “Complete list vote” box in the Single Vote Ballot (BUS), and the task of the polling station authorities.
One of the constants in the voting records was the sum of only the votes for governor, and in the rest of the list everything was blank.
In many of the 440 “incidental” ballot boxes (they are the ones that are asked to review the votes due to some inconsistency) it was evident that there were errors in the count validated by the polling station authority. Something that was verified in the majority of the 116 open ballot boxes.
But in addition, there was another detail that might explain the victory of Together for Change and the defeat of Hacemos Unidos in the categories of “Single District Legislator” and in the “Tribunal de Cuentas.”
As in other elections with the BUS, in the Electoral Court they detected that there were many cases in which the second box, corresponding to “Governor and vice”, was interpreted as the first, of “Complete list vote”. The high percentages of blank votes for the legislator and the Court corroborate this.
But also, where the error was repeated the most was in the option that had the photo of Martín Llaryora, while where Luis Juez was, there were a few thousand more votes for “Single District Legislator” and for “Tribunal de Cuentas”.
How many more? 1,782 in the case of legislators and 4,567 in the Court of Accounts. A minuscule difference that on other occasions, perhaps due to the wide distance between the first and the second, had not weighed. But that in an election as even as the last one meant a lot.
The Electoral Justice presented the Single Ballot of Suffrage.
“I have many questions left to reflect on. For example, how to improve the Single Ballot in what has to do with the vote for the complete list”, affirmed González Zamar and expressed that this “will be a challenge for the new Legislature”.
table authorities
The other alarm was the poor performance of a large percentage of table authorities. Although the problem is not new, it continues to worry the Justice and the attorneys.
There were situations, for example, in which records with inconsistencies had, in addition to the signature of the president of the board, that of several prosecutors. “How can it be that four people can validate this?” asked one of the PJ representatives last Wednesday before a poorly made form.
Tired from so many hours of work? Lack of training? Little attachment to civic duty? Questions that must have an answer in the short term.
Agents
Several of the proxies who were present during the seven days that the official scrutiny lasted agreed in highlighting the counting process, especially due to the speed and the agreements to advance, although they did not fail to emphasize the antecedent of the provisional failure and the previous one of the election .
Oscar Agost Carreño, from Together for Change, stated that “the pineapple” of the failed ballot made the Provincial Justice react on time. “In general, it was done well and there are no claims,” said the PRO leader.
For Alvaro Zamora, from Encuentro Vecinal, the system is “good” but it might be better if “politics” did not manipulate it and there were “unchangeable” laws on elections.
And although he highlighted the speed of the count, he remarked that “the municipal campaign slipped in there and ended up being the fastest because Llaryora needed the results.”
Manuel Calvo, campaign manager, and Ramiro Sánchez, representative of Hacemos Unidos por Córdoba (Javier Ferreyra / La Voz)
Ramiro Sánchez from Hacemos Unidos por Córdoba also appreciated the speed and the agreements reached in many cases of inconsistencies. “There were differences, but above all between them (because of the opposition), which in some cases sought to delay the count,” he said.
For Alfredo Leytes, from the Left, the official scrutiny “was normal” in an election “that started very badly.”
“It started almost outside the law: they gave us 15 days following what corresponded to the spaces. That made it difficult for all the small parties, ”he said.
Leytes, who began supervising in 1989, added that the training on Sunday the 25th was very bad. “I had never seen the last elections. The Fipes were not informed, the technicians (from Turing) did not know how to operate the machines… and the small parties, which do not have prosecutors at all the tables, suffered the reluctance of the electoral authorities to give us the forms that we use to control”, he analyzed.
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