The Constitutional Court (TC) decided to validate a null vote in favor of the CDU and declare a null vote for Chega.
The Constitutional Court (TC) ordered a recount of the votes in a section of the parish of São Domingos de Benfica, in Lisbon, and decided to validate a null vote in favor of the CDU and declare another null from Chega na parish of Santa Maria Maior.
The TC decided “to grant the appeal filed against the decision to reject the request for a recount of the votes and to order that the votes be recounted in polling section no. 28 of the polling station in the parish of São Domingos de Benfica, in the municipality of Lisbon, in relation to the election for the Lisbon City Council”.
At issue is “a disparity between the results contained in the minutes of the local count and those contained in the notice of the local count in the computer system ‘VPN Eleitoral'”.
In the ruling, dated Friday, the TC considers that there is “a well-founded and serious doubt about the existence of an error with repercussions on the electoral result, which can only be dispelled by the recount of the votes from that polling station”.
They had already been registered 60 votes to be counted in the parish of São Domingos de Benfica.
CDU vote validated and Chega’s vote annulled
The judges at Ratton Palace also decided validate a vote from the parish of Santa Maria Maior, for the CDU, which had been declared void, and declare another vote that had been attributed to Chega null and void in the parish of Santa Clara.
Chega was ahead of the CDU in Lisbon by three votes, an advantage that was reduced to just one.
In the case of a vote validated for the CDU, you will find “marked with a cross partially inside the square corresponding to the CDU list”.
The TC considers that this bulletin ensures the rule of law which states that a vote is not considered invalid if the “cross, although not perfectly drawn or exceeding the limits of the square, unequivocally signals the voter’s will”.
“In the present case, the cross is placed partially on the respective square, entirely distanced from the squares of the other candidacies, with one of the straight segments placed on the square and the other touching the apex of the square. Furthermore, the characters of the cross design — in large size and with the lines revealing shaky writing — seem to show that these are precisely the cases that the legislator wanted to cover with [esta] norm,” he justifies.
As for Chega’s vote, which the TC declared null in the parish of Santa Clara, the voter marked his choice with a “V”, instead of a cross in the corresponding square.
The judges consider that “any other signs could not only create doubts regarding the interpretation of the electoral will but would also decisively call into question the secrecy of the vote, allowing the voter to be identified based on the chosen design”.
A week ago, the CDU appealed to the TC regarding “deliberations of the general tabulation assembly of the municipality of Lisbon” regarding the election for the city council and asked for a recount of the votes in São Domingos de Benfica.
The coalition requested that some votes declared null be re-examined and declared valid “as they demonstrate an unequivocal intention to vote for the CDU”, and that the non-compliance underlying the decision criterion that, in situations of identical votes, declared as valid a vote from Chega to the Lisbon City Council, which must be declared null, in respect and compliance with the principle of equality.
According to the provisional results of the municipal elections on the 12th, published by the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration, Chega, the party that in 2021 failed to be elected to the Lisbon City Council, was the third most voted candidate.
If the result is confirmed, councilors Bruno Mascarenhas and Ana Simões Silva, for Chega, and João Ferreira, for CDU, will be elected, which will thus lose a councilor in the capital.
