The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of the PSOE that requested the recount of the null vote in Madrid in the general elections. The Chamber of Holidays of the high court has issued a sentence today that rejects the petition of the Socialists against the scrutiny of the last general elections referred to Madrid, which demanded the recount of some 30,000 invalid votes in said constituency.
After examining the jurisprudence and doctrine of the Constitutional Court on this matter, the magistrates have concluded that the PSOE's claim does not meet the requirements demanded by said doctrine to carry out a review of votes as requested. The PSOE has three days to appeal to the TC itself and the latter fifteen days to resolve.
The court has concluded that "the mere numerical difference in the results that is alleged in this case (1,200 votes) is not a sufficient basis for the review" of some 30,000 invalid votes "not claimed given the lack of accreditation of the reasonable probability of incidence in the final result of the scrutiny carried out with all the guarantees, without being able to access the review ad cautelam or preventively, in case any erroneous assessment of the null vote favorable to the appellant could be appreciated”.
It adds that "it is a mere option that does not respond to the principle of legal certainty and conservation of the acts contained in the LOREG (Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime).
The court explains that the argument put forward by the appellant party and shared by the Prosecutor's Office cannot be accepted, which coincidentally argues that the declaration of nullity is made by citizens who make up the Boards laymen in law, who lack technical-legal knowledge, and that this training deficit makes it convenient to review the null vote.
“Such an allegation seems to be unaware – the magistrates indicate – the pillars on which the electoral process is based, since LOREG precisely starts from the principle of democratic participation and citizen intervention in the electoral process, the aspect being questioned here being irrelevant ", picks up the text.
The sentence explains that the appreciation of the validity or nullity of the vote "is not a complex legal operation, it is carried out in the public act of counting, in which each one of the votes is examined by the president of the Table (article 95.4) and reveals each ballot to the other members of the Board, auditors and representatives of the candidacies, in accordance with pre-established criteria in the LOREG”.
It also recalls the presence of the representatives and proxies of the different political formations, “who guarantee a correct examination of the vote and who have the capacity to protest each vote. For this reason, it is not possible to question the work that the Law attributes to citizens in the electoral process, so that the allegation must be dismissed.
For the Supreme Court, no matter how broad the interpretive criteria may be to ensure the maximum effectiveness of the right to vote, it cannot be accepted that in the specific case analyzed, the mere adjustment of the result requires the inspection or verification of the performance of each Board in the task of its functions, not based on an irregularity or vice in the electoral process that may imply the lack of correlation between the will of the electoral body and the final result, obtained after the orderly and regular development of the process in accordance with the LOREG.
Likewise, it considers that no arithmetic data or solvent statistical calculations have been provided to verify, even hypothetically, the relevance of the vote review in the final result and in the attribution of the controversial seat.
