The number of rejected signatures for the plebiscite against social security reform that drives the PIT-CNT continues to grow, at the same time as the concern of the union center about not being able to achieve the popular consultation together with the general elections in Uruguay. According to the details that agreed to grant the Electoral Court, The main reasons for challenging the signatures are that they do not match those in the registry or that the ballot has incomplete data on the signatories.
Given the alarming increase in rejected signatures, the PIT-CNT requested a technical review of the rejected ballots, with the aim of being able to correct the errors and finally count on the majority of the contested adhesions. This request was accepted by the Electoral Court, which provided the details of the Verification process that is being carried out on the 430,023 rubrics presented by the union center.
The report indicates that so far 174,858 signatures have been accepted and 59,106 have been rejected. To formally enable the plebiscite, another 101,293 adhesions certified by the Electoral Court would remain.
In this regard, the Minister of the Court José Garchitorena stated that the PIT-CNT “A few days ago he presented a request to have access to the signatures rejected by the Court, and the Court agreed to exhibit those signatures.” The document detailing the process shows the two main reasons why the signatures have been rejected: because the signature does not match the one on record and because the ballot for collecting accessions presents incomplete data about the signatory.
As he explained to Telemundo, the verification is developed “based on regulations that are many years old, which establishes step by step what the pairs of officials assigned to this task have to do.” “The task begins with the numbering of the ballots, signatures or lines that the ballots have. In the verification stage, the lines that have missing data, are incomplete or empty are obviously discarded,” he explained.
Among other reasons why a ballot can be discarded, he indicated that “it may be because it does not match the one that appears in the electoral registry, because the name does not correspond to the credential, because the credential corresponds to a disqualified person or a minor. age that he can get the credential because he will reach his majority by May 2025, but he is not yet authorized to vote.”
The ruling party sows the specter of fraud
Given the news of the high number of rejected signatures, from the ruling party – which from the first moment expressed strongly against the initiative of the PIT-CNT for the consequences that Constitutional reform in terms of social security it would have for public finances and the sustainability of the pension system—they began to question the honesty of the union center’s campaign.
“Either they are trout, fake, or there were multiple ones, people who signed several times, and that is done voluntarily, no one signs distractedly several times. Or there are minors. It is striking, 100,000 signatures is not a coincidence,” the senator from the National Party and former Minister of Defense, Javier Garciaof great prominence in the campaign of the presidential candidate Alvaro Delgado.
“It is very worrying. It ends up being for that percentage a fraudulent action“, he pointed out and highlighted that together with the PIT-CNT “important sectors of the Wide Front” gathering signatures for the plebiscite for social security reform.
Source: Ambito
