The invalid vote expressed in various ways such as crossing out the ballot or voting for more than one of the allowed options.
By accepting this option the citizen’s decision is not considered within the universe of valid votes.
Votes will be considered valid issued on the ballots supplied by the voting receiving board (JRV) and that in any way express in an intelligible manner the will of the voter, indicates art. 125 of the Organic Electoral Law.
Ecuadorian electoral legislation indicates that The one who obtains half plus one of the valid votes cast wins an election.
In the case of running for mayor or prefectures, the one who obtained the highest number of valid votes wins.
For the invalid vote to have weight and imply a change, it must exceed the sum of the suffrage exercised in favor of each one of the candidates of an election or of the respective lists, according to the case.
Number three of art. 147 of the Democracy Code says that If the null votes exceed the total number of votes of the candidates, the nullity of the elections is declared..
But it is very difficult for that condition to be met.
The consequences are that the higher the percentage of invalid votes, the universe of valid votes is reduced.
If of 100% of voters, 20% is null, then the definition of the assignment of the position would be made by the remaining 80%. “With this the universe of calculation is reduced, so whoever is going to win the election will require fewer votes to achieve it,” says Carlos Aguinaga, former president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal as the current National Electoral Council (CNE) was previously known.
In the previous electoral legislation it was prohibited to campaign for the invalid vote, because it was considered an anti-system vote, that is, against the democratic system.
The invalid vote has not reached, on average, even 10% of the total votes exercised historically in the country’s electoral processes.
The art. 126 of the Organic Electoral Law indicates that will be considered as invalid votes:
- Those that contain marks for more than one candidate or, depending on the case, binomial, in one-person elections;
- When the voter marks more than one list in multi-person elections or expresses her preference for candidates between lists.
- Those that carry the words “null” or “annulled”, or other similar ones, or those that have erasures that clearly demonstrate the will to annul the vote. Those without any mark will be considered blank votes. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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