NewsWhore
11-03-2010, 04:50 PM
Civil society group Citizen Participation has vehemently rejected the move by the new Central Electoral Board (JCE) to eliminate what is known as the "preferential vote". The National Council of Citizen Participation warned that the decision by the JCE is a violation of the spirit of Article 79 of the Electoral Law. According to El Caribe newspaper, the article says that: the national elections to elect deputies and city council members will be held by electoral districts (circumscriptions) with the objective of guaranteeing that the citizens who are elected in the general elections of 2002 and following years are true representatives of the inhabitants who elect them". The civic watchdog group criticized the fact that the voting process had gone from closed voting lists that required voters to vote for a party's entire list of candidates to one that allowed voters to pick and choose the candidates. Santiago Sosa, the general coordinator for the group said that, "Just when we expected that the coattail effect represented by the combined slate of deputies and senators, we are surprised by the retrograde step that will return to the closed slates with no options..."
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More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#3)