In what cases does assisted voting apply?

• More than 21 million Venezuelans are eligible to vote on July 28 | Photo: José Daniel Ramos @danielj2511

Presidential elections in Venezuela are scheduled for July 28. According to the Electoral Gazette released on June 4 by the National Electoral Council (CNE), a total of 21,620,705 people are eligible to vote in the elections.

Although the Organic Law on Electoral Processes, in its article 128, indicates that voters must exercise their right to vote individually and that members of the Electoral Board must not allow companions, there are cases in which a person requires assistance during the process.

The rule highlights that voters with the following conditions are exempt from this provision:

-Illiterate (a person who can neither read nor write),

-Invisible

-Any other disability

-Older adults

“(These people) may exercise their right to vote in the company of a person of their choice. No person may be a companion more than once,” he added.

What does it take to vote?

Electoral regulations indicate that the right to vote is exercised in person at the polling station where the voter is registered according to the Definitive Electoral Register.

Article 125 of the Electoral Processes Law indicates that to exercise the right to vote, people must present their original laminated ID card, expired or current, at the polling station.

“A voter who appears on the voting register may not be prevented from exercising his or her right to vote,” the law states in its article 127.

When is a vote invalid?

The Organic Law of Electoral Processes details that the vote will be invalid when in manual voting:

-The voter marks outside the space provided for this purpose on the ballot.

-None of the spaces provided for this purpose appear marked on the ballot.

-More than one space appears marked on the ballot, except in the case of alliances, in which case the vote will be counted in the box corresponding to “several cards”
valid”

-The ballot is mutilated or destroyed with loss of its data
essential, preventing the determination of the voter’s voting intention.

At a polling station with an automated system, the vote may be invalid when:

-The voter does not select any candidate.

-The time allowed to exercise your right expires.

-The other causes provided for in the regulations.

Candidates for the presidential elections

Ten candidates are running, including President Nicolas Maduro, who is seeking a second re-election, and opposition candidate Edmundo González, who has the support of Maria Corina Machado.

There are other candidates running for office, all of them with no real chance of winning the presidency on July 28, according to all the polls and the popularity tested during the pre-campaign.

Deputies José Brito and Luis Eduardo Martínez – both dissidents of the opposition coalition, classified as government collaborators – remain in the race supported by parties that were intervened by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) and whose traditional leaders support González Urrutia.

Photo: EFE/ Miguel Gutierrez

Javier Bertucci, meanwhile, will run for president for the second time after finishing third in the 2018 presidential elections. The candidate maintains his proposal of “Christian values” that he has defended both in Parliament and before the evangelical people.

The panel of candidates is joined by former mayors Claudio Fermín and Daniel Ceballos, comedian Benjamín Rausseo, former councilor Antonio Ecarri and former deputy Enrique Márquez.

Currently, the candidates are in the electoral campaign, which ends on July 25. Edmundo Gonzalez, together with Maria Corina Machado, have traveled to several states in Venezuela

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