Padilla Rivera said the SEC investigated the situation of at least 20 voters listed as deceased in the SEC system and found that it was an error.
The STAR STAFF
The State Election Commission will not publish results until the acts of each precinct are corrected, the agency’s Alternate Chairwoman Jessika Padilla Rivera said this weekend.
“We continue to finally attend to what remains of precinct 1 of San Juan, what remains of precinct two, and work on what is precinct 3. We continue to evaluate the acts to finally prove that they are all 100 percent correct, which is the biggest challenge we have faced in recent days. We continue to see results in the dissemination system of the official page of the State Election Commission. Gradually, yes, we want to see more results, but until and as long as we make sure that the minutes are correct, we will not bring results that do not match the system,” said Padilla Rivera in a press conference on Saturday.
“There are 114 precincts; we are attending to the first three precincts in San Juan; the remaining 111 are still pending. I understand that some tables already have (precinct) 4. Several (working) areas do not all work in parallel, so when one finishes, the other is not necessarily finished,” she said.
The counting tables have all the ballot boxes from precinct 1. “However, there are still pending reports that have not been balanced from precinct 1, even if you have delivered the ballot box and have attended to 100 percent of precinct 1 in the first area, which is what is being attended to. In that case, it returns to the table to balance that ballot box. So, we would have to see exactly what 100 percent of the results have already been entered into the page, because what is entered into the page is 100 percent already balanced,” she added.
The situation worsens because there are few officials available to balance the minutes for the direct nomination votes.
“It is what we want, it is what we have said all these days, we are giving main and special interest to the balancing of the acts. We had not had a high participation in the direct nomination in the previous scrutiny. That directly affects the other positions on the legislative ballot. That takes time. And we cannot work on a record if it is not balanced. Precisely the slowness that we are seeing, what is proving is that the work is being done and that we are not, as they say in the jargon of the tables, we are not messing around with the acts,” she said.
“We are working on them as they should be. What does not add up, is returned. Do we want to see progress? Yes, of course, we all want to see progress, but we cannot compare this scrutiny with previous years because we had not seen such a significant rise in direct nominations on the legislative ballot, which directly implies other changes, other impacts on other positions,” she said.
The alternate president said the electoral commissioners will be deciding soon whether or not to extend the work schedule.
On the other hand, Padilla Rivera said the SEC investigated the situation of at least 20 voters listed as deceased in the SEC system and found that it was an error.
“The lists added by hand bring those voters who are not in the regular polling station; they are added by hand and it is evaluated whether or not they are excluded due to death. The lists that have been received, we have seen that they are excluded due to death. When the investigation is done, it seems to me that recently yesterday morning, we had 20 cases of people excluded due to death who are not dead but have voted. It is that they are living people who by mistake excluded themselves and went to vote. So what we have seen of people excluded due to death is due to an error in the system and if they have already been identified, they are people who are alive,” said Padilla Rivera in a press conference.
“How is this done? It goes to the list of the secretariat for the Special Secretariat Board (JES in Spanish). They work on what is the inclusion. When you make the comparison of the excluded due to death and the one who is pending inclusion, there the names match, that work of adding is done by hand and it is accredited that in effect it is not a deceased person,” she added.
The electoral commissioner of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), Karla Angleró González denounced the irregularity Thursday.
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