WILLEMSTAD - The Supreme Electoral Council (SEC) of Curaçao announced the official results of the support elections during a public meeting on Monday. There appear to be no deviations from the preliminary results. This means that the previously reported 15 parties will participate in the parliamentary elections on 19 March.
Earlier, a number of parties in the media had objected to the results of the primaries of 30 and 31 January because of the high number of invalidated votes.
Humphrey Davelaar of Movementu KAS, for example, found that prior to the primaries there was too little information about how the ballots should be used. Jaime Cordoba, number two on Un Korsou Nobo's list, said it was a shame that 600 votes had been declared invalid.
Party leader of Union i Progreso (UP) Elvis de Andrade said he had hard evidence that his party had received sufficient preferential votes. However, during the public meeting last Monday, when the opportunity was offered to raise objections, no one responded.
Milangelo “Low” Martines of the party Korsou Esun Miho (KEM) who with 2686 votes more than the number of necessary votes, said this week in the media that 600 invalid votes are disproportionate.
According to Electoral Council Chairman Raymond “Pacheco” Römer, who has been involved in all elections on the island since 1982, it depends on how you look at it. “In the past we have often had such numbers of invalid votes,” said Römer.
“If you compare this year with the previous primaries, it is a lot. But if you go through the entire history of our elections, you will see that there have been such numbers of invalid votes more often. It's not about the absolute number, but the percentage. That is almost always between 1 and 2 percent. You can assume that. This time, however, there was an outlier of three percent, but three percent of invalid votes have been more common in our elections.”
Regarding comments that the voter was insufficiently informed about how to vote, Römer says that this method is not used for the first time in Curaçao. “We have been using the system of voting with a red pencil for a long time. And during those years we have shown often enough how to support a party during a primary election.”
Römer says that although the next step has already been taken towards the March 19 elections, there is still a possibility to investigate the invalid votes later. "We do want that as the Electoral Council. But how we are going to do it will have to be discussed in a future meeting."
However, Römer emphasizes: "It will not change the outcome of the primaries, but it would be good to know exactly about the invalid votes."
