Being the blank vote, it is the third option on the electoral card for the second round, it is one more option for Colombians, but its functionality generates doubts and conjectures.
Colombia News.
The second round to elect the president of Colombia is approaching, one party has already defined its candidate; others are in the dilemma and many more know that they will not vote for Gustavo Petro or Rodolfo Hernández, and for that population, there is also an option: the blank vote, but what is its function?
This option is always present in almost all popular vote elections.
In Colombia, in presidential elections, more than 2% of eligible voters always vote for that blank box. There have even been voting tables and centers, where this has been the most chosen option.
On May 29, it reached 1.73%, more than 300 thousand, in a universe of more than 21 million votes.
What does it add?
Add to the democratic day, that people can have a different option to the candidates, but on each election day there is no shortage of conjectures.
Many wonder, to which candidate do they give those blank votes?
The answer is: the blank vote does not add to any candidacy, and the only effect contrary to democracy that could be generated if there is a majority, is that the people would be exposing their tiredness of the traditional electoral campaigns, the promises and the results of the governments.
According to the Registrar’s Office, this vote ‘for no one’, in accordance with ruling C-490 of 2011 of the Constitutional Court that declared the enforceability of Law 1475 (Political Reform), “is a political expression of dissent, abstention or disagreement, with political effects.
What effects does it have?
According to what was expressed by the coordinator of electoral justice of the EOM, Camilo Mancera, «it has no real effects on the sum of the election between the candidates.
“It has no real effects, that is, it has symbolic effects through which the citizen can express their disagreement by casting this vote, but that will not cause candidates to be changed,” he said.
That is, it will not affect the result of the vote for the candidates.
On the other hand, for the electoral delegate of the Registry, Nicolás Farfán Namén, who comments: “It is a valid vote. However, it must be clarified that it does not have the possibility of invalidating the result because article 258 of the Political Constitution, in its first paragraph, says that when the blank vote wins in the first presidential round, the elections must be repeated”.
What would happen if he wins in the second round?
If he wins the blank vote in the second round, the candidate with the most votes, even if he is below the blank votes, will become the President of the Republic.
Remember that in the second presidential round the blank vote has no legal effect. pic.twitter.com/dSj484NGFs
— National Registry of Civil Status (@Registraduria) June 7, 2022
