One day after the popular candidate, Ismael “Titi” Rodríguez Ramos, will take possession of the mayor of Guánica, Supreme Court confirmed the judgments issued by Court of first instance in favor of the allegations of Edgardo Cruz Velez, who campaigned as a direct nominee.
In short, the Supreme Court, by decision 7-1, ruled that the president State Electoral Commission (EEC), Francisco Rosado Colomer, had the power to draw up a list of variations of the name of Cruz Vélez that would have been granted and that the EEC itself has the obligation to cast all the votes that include any of these variations, even if the voter did not mark the rectangle accompanying the nomination column direct.
The opinion of the court, written by the associate judge Erick Kolthoff Caraballo, implies, in essence, that the EEC must open the cases of ordinary and face-to-face early voting schools to identify ballot papers containing the name of Cruz Vélez, but not the rectangular mark.
Likewise, in all likelihood, it implies that both Rodríguez Ramos and the other party candidates will have their votes reduced, as electronic counting devices would have identified the ballots in which the voter intended to vote as full votes. mixed.
According to the results published on the EEC website, Rodríguez Ramos received 2,386 votes and the former mayor Santos „Papichy” Seda, from The new progressive party, 2,332. While appeals were being heard before Superior Judge Anthony Cuevas, the EEC certified that Cruz Vélez had received 2,335 votes, with the possibility that the number would increase with the voting of the additional ballots.
The EEC portal reflects the fact that the direct nomination column received 2,362 votes, but does not detail how many are for Cruz Vélez.
Last week, the PNP election commissioner, Hector Joaquin Sanchez, publicly argued that if the Supreme Court upheld the first instance decision, Cruz Vélez would win by a minimum margin.
President Maite Oronoz and the associate judge Luis Estrella Martinez issued compliance opinions while the associate Angel Colon Perez issued a competing opinion.
Only the associate judge Rafael Martinez Torres issued a dissenting opinion, arguing that candidates have the right to challenge the result of the control only after a winner has been certified. In this regard, he stressed that the Supreme Court should have rejected the certification of resources to bring them directly before its examination.