Santo Domingo.- The senator for the province of San Juan, Felix Bautista, presented today before the Senate a bill that seeks to eliminate the D’Hondt Method, for the selection of deputies, councilors and members of the district boards.
He explained that the article 77 of the Constitution establishes that the election of deputies and senators will be done by direct universal suffrage, in the terms established by the law and 208 indicates that the vote is personal, free, direct and secret.
Baptist qualifies in one of the recitals of the proposal of law “the D’Hont method as unfair and disproportionate, since it does not correlate the number of votes obtained individually with obtaining the seats, which implicitly alters the popular will.
Also, according to the legislator of the Power of the Peoplereduces balanced participation and transgresses constitutional precepts, with regard to the right of minorities, stated in article 209, paragraph 2 and the principle of equality of the article 39, paragraph 3, of the Constitutionamong others.”
«Article 5 of the proposal proposes a modification to article 295 of Organic Law No. 20-23 of the Electoral Regime, providing that the voter will choose the candidate of his preferenceregardless of the position they have on the list proposed by the applicant party, movement or political organization, in the cases of deputies in the established electoral constituenciesthe councilors and their substitutes in the municipalities, as well as the members of the municipal districts.”
The initiative excludes overseas deputies, Parlacen and the national deputies.
Bautista stressed that if approved this initiativeto, the deputies In the national territory, the councilors and members will be elected by simple majority, that is, those who obtain the greatest number of valid votes cast.
The initiative of legislator for Saint John, repeals Law 157-13, which establishes the D’Hondt method and partially modifies Organic Law no. 20-23 Organic of the Electoral Regime.
