The Central Electoral Board (JEC) has resolved today, Thursday, that the Sociological Research Center did not violate the law, specifically article 69.8 of the organic law of the General Electoral Regime (Loreg), when carrying out a survey on the voting intention of the Spaniards in the general campaign of July 23 and, consequently, rejects the appeal raised by the PP, which had denounced the public demographic institute, chaired by José Félix Tezanos, to the supervisory body.
The PP considered that the public nature of the CIS obliged it to report the results of the survey to all political parties and requested this information on July 21, two days before the elections. But the organization headed by Tezanos denied this request and did not provide the data until after election day, alleging that the necessary field work and validation had not yet been carried out.
Given the CIS's refusal, the PP raised its request to the JEC, which in turn requested the report from the CIS on the same day of the elections, July 23, and obtained a response that was in the same direction as the one offered two times. days before: the survey was missing a part of the supervision process, what in sociological and journalistic jargon is known as "the kitchen" of the data.
Finally, on August 3, the CIS sent the PP the information from its survey, titled "Methodological study on voting definition/decision trends throughout the July 2023 electoral campaign", when a week had already passed. and a half since the verdict of the polls.
From there, a process began that culminated with the presentation by the PP of a claim before the JEC on September 13, in which it alleged that the CIS had failed to comply with the duty to inform required in article 69.8 of the Loreg and that, in addition, during the campaign it had carried out "electoral tracking with an average of 2,700 surveys per day."
For the PP, these daily polls had "practical application" by detecting the support of the different parties in a "critical phase" of the campaign, since the oscillations of the last few days were "decisive" - that was when the collapse occurred, not detected by the surveys, of the expectations of an absolute majority between the PP and Vox-, and therefore understands that having this information "was an invaluable advantage" for those who had access to this data.
On the other hand, the formation of Alberto Núñez Feijóo also refers to the fact that the CIS asked about the meaning of the vote by mail, which had already been cast, an extreme that it denounced as "unjustifiable" because, argues the PP, " "violates the right to secret suffrage and the principles of equality, objectivity and transparency and even the regulations on data protection." To which the CIS responded that "the answer to your questions is always anonymous and voluntary."
In response to these claims, Tezanos alleged that it sent the requested information to the PP within the legal period of 48 hours after its request, but counted "from the completion" of the work, and that if it did not previously inform about the questions, the size of the sample and the sampling procedure is because that information was not required. The president of the CIS also explains that it was a "global" study that could only be published when it was complete and not by dividing its results, since the daily samples were not "relevant."
Likewise, the sociologist defended himself with the argument that no vote estimate was made, because the purpose of the study was "a subsequent analysis of the decision-making processes", and that the progress tables by days were only intended to "facilitate "The subsequent work: "This study allows us to know the past, it does not analyze trends, as the usual electoral studies do," Tezanos concluded in response to the accusation of having prepared daily tracking reports.
For all this, Tezanos requested that it be declared that there has been no breach of electoral regulations nor was it appropriate to carry out any expert opinion, "not least the opening of a sanctioning file" as required by the PP in its claim, hiding behind the fact that "no data can be provided partial raw data or grant access to them, since Loreg only establishes this obligation with respect to the results of the survey and not its raw data.
Given this background of the event, the JEC has concluded that it is not its responsibility to "qualify or evaluate the nature of the CIS survey" and that its work "is limited" to verifying whether the Loreg was violated in its article 69.8 as alleged by the PP. And consequently, "in the absence of precedents and with the data at its disposal", it does not appreciate that the CIS has violated the electoral legislation, since it informed the JEC of the preparation of the study and subsequently delivered its results, "which is why "The initiation of disciplinary proceedings is not appropriate."
