Spanish
Santo Domingo.- The president of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), Román Andrés Jáquez Liranzo, announced this Monday that the plenary of this body has considered using 2% of the people who actually voted, and not 2% of the general electoral roll, as the basis for the requirement of formalizing independent candidacies. This modification could represent a significant reduction in the number of endorsements required for those who wish to run independently.
These statements were offered after his participation in a meeting convened by the Special Commission of the Chamber of Deputies that is studying the bill on independent candidacies. Jáquez Liranzo clarified that this is, so far, the only aspect that the JCE has reconsidered regarding the bill that it had already deposited in the National Congress.
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In addition to the proposal presented by the JCE, the commission is also evaluating two additional projects: one from Deputy Wessin Chávez and another from Deputy Rogelio Genao.
Key Figures
For the 2024 presidential elections, there were 8,145,548 citizens eligible to vote, but only 4,429,079 exercised their right to vote at the presidential level. If the proposed modification is approved, the 2% requirement would be applied to this last figure in the case of presidential aspirations, which is equivalent to approximately 88,582 signatures, instead of the more than 162,000 that would be required if the general electoral roll criterion were maintained.
For his part, the chairman of the commission, Representative Wessin Chávez, expressed concern about what this change means for municipalities that have fewer than 4,000 voters at the municipal and legislative levels.
