Doubts about the possibility of double voting

The 13,795 envelopes with manually added ballots were already checked and granted during the general count, but in that year 6,229 voters who voted in advance by mail were not taken into account, which prevented the verification of whether any of these votes were cast twice, acknowledged the President of the State Electoral Commission (EEC), Francisco Rosado Colomer.

The 6,229 envelopes in which the advance ballots that appeared in the last days in six briefcases were sent were not included in the list that was used to confirm voters who had already voted and therefore did not have the right to vote. added manually.

The six sealed briefcases appeared at the edge of the Roberto Clemente Colosseum in San Juan, where electoral control is taking place.

“Those briefcases were placed there in that area on November 11, and from November 11 they remained there until December 4, when a third-party official (Puerto Rico’s Independence Party) found them there.” explained Rosado Colomer.

“Therefore, the information on those envelopes, the ones that had not been entered in the system, was not available when the hands-on exercise was done. Whether or not there was a double vote in the 6,229 did, because that means an additional exercise that will have to be done later, “he added.

He clarified that the hand-added vote will be checked again at the end of the control, as it will not stop those jobs that are currently overdue. “We cannot, at this moment, resume control, resume the work of addition by hand,” said the president of CEE.

He stressed that if a double vote is found, it will be taken before state and federal authorities because it is a crime. “I think that even if the result does not change, what is responsible is to file a complaint if someone has a well-founded suspicion that a crime has been committed,” he said.

“But, right now, I don’t think we have the ‘labor force’ (labor force) to do it, especially at the stage we are in, because we even added it manually, we took it out of the arena (from the coliseum ) to add more tables “, he added.

Rosado Colomer delivered to the election commissioners on Wednesday, a copy of the security videos taken on December 4 and 11 at the place where the 6,229 envelopes with early voting were found by mail.

“What emerges from the videos is that the maintenance employees took over the area and located it there. On December 4, a third official is in the area smoking a cigarette and identifies the briefcases and there we meet. I gave it to the commissioners (videos) so that they could make a decision “, he explained.

He assured that the list with which the possibility of double voting is compared is updated daily to include the names of voters whose ballots arrive by mail. The EEC will receive the ballot papers voted by post until the end of the count, according to the provisions of the Electoral Code, but they must have the postmark on or before November 3.

“So far, I have to say that no double vote has been cast, so if we go to the odds, the probability of a double vote would be based on very low experience, because it has not yet been confirmed that we found a vote. double “, he specified.