The Central Electoral Board (JEC) has decided this Thursday to keep Óscar Puente, former Minister of Transport, as the head of the PSOE list for the Valladolid constituency on the election ballots, and has warned that it will not accept that his name be crossed out, thus correcting the criterion set by the provincial electoral board.
Puente submitted his resignation on the 3rd of last month to head the socialist candidacy for Valladolid after stepping down from his position in the Government, but he did so when the lists had already been officially proclaimed, a moment from which the regulations no longer allow changes to be made to the candidacies.
At the request of the PSOE, the Electoral Board of Valladolid accepted Puente’s resignation as a candidate for the elections, although it rejected removing his name from the ballots, considering that the resignation took place once the candidacy had been proclaimed and that, therefore, it could not be removed from the printed list.
In that ruling, the provincial body emphasized that if a voter decided to cross out Puente’s name on their ballot, the table chairpersons would be informed that that vote should not be counted as a blank or invalid vote.
However, this Thursday the JEC has opted to revoke that agreement and, following its consolidated doctrine, states that all those ballots on which the name of the candidate who has resigned appears crossed out will be declared invalid.
The central body recalls that article 96,2 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG) expressly establishes that votes cast on ballots that have been modified or altered, as well as those on which the names of candidates have been added, crossed out, or marked, or their order has been changed, are null and void.