The Central Electoral Board (JEC) has decided not to review the nearly 30,000 invalid votes that the PSOE challenged in the Madrid constituency. In this way, the PP officially obtains its seat 137 -16 in said region-, while the socialist force drops to 121 deputies -11 in the province of Madrid-.

In the legal text, the highest body of the electoral administration has defended its position stating that “an argument of this nature cannot be accepted, since it is contrary to the procedure established in the LOREG (Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime) and would make it unfeasible meet the legally established deadlines.

Of special relevance is one of his reasonings that he issues in the foundations of law: “The appellant does not allege any irregularity in the general scrutiny to justify the repetition that he requests, but limits himself to invoking his right to review the null vote indicating the closeness in the number of votes needed to modify the distribution of seats in the Madrid constituency”.

The JEC has also provided at the end of the letter that “against this Agreement there is no appeal”, although the decision of the Provincial Electoral Board “on the proclamation of elected officials” can be appealed through contentious-electoral means, “provided for in articles 109 and following of the electoral law.

According to PP sources, with regard to voting, the Electoral Board has ruled by 10 votes in favor and 3 against this decision.

AN INCREDIBLE DECISION

And it is that as this newspaper already anticipated exclusively last Tuesday, there would be no changes. The body chaired by Miguel Colmenero did not see it as feasible to review those thousands of invalid ballots that the party led by Pedro Sánchez claimed so as not to definitively lose its twelfth seat in Madrid. A key chair.

After the Provincial Board of Madrid did not agree to carry out the count of these thousands of invalid votes, the PSOE raised its demand to the JEC. Along these lines, they also stated that invalid votes that have been protested at the polling stations would normally be reviewed.. If not, it's hard.

THE PRECEDENTS OF THE DECISION

As a result of the rejection of the regional body, the PSOE released a statement in which it accused the Madrid delegation of having infringed the electoral regulations and of violating the Constitution by denying its request to review all the votes consigned as invalid.. Therefore, he asked the JEC to revoke the agreement of the regional board and agree to review all of them.

The PSOE calculated that it needed 1,341 valid votes, which is 4.43% of the 30,241 total to recover the seat that the PP obtained due to the vote of residents abroad.

In addition, the socialist group defended that its request was so “transcendent and justified” as the one made by the PP on July 30 when it urged the review of all invalid votes in Cantabria “since it was also at a short distance from a deputy from Vox”. The left-wing force pointed out that the PP ended up withdrawing that claim “most likely, so that it would not interfere in the decision” on the appeal raised by them in Madrid.

At the last moment, the elected deputy of Sumar and general secretary of the PCE, Enrique Santiago, joined Yolanda Díaz's party on Monday morning to the request made by the socialists by declaring: “We have adhered to that request and we understand that It is not so much effort to review 30,000 votes, especially when in this case the assignment of the last deputy depends on a thousand votes”. To which he added: “Our criteria is that they should be reviewed if there is a political force that is requesting it.. What's more, during the time between that refusal and a possible review by the JEC, there would have been plenty of time to review those votes and preserve the rights of everyone.”

THE FORMATION OF GOVERNMENT

This intensity that the PSOE has printed on the Madrid vote count is key to understanding the future governability of Spain. And it is that with only very few supports that separated the socialists from the popular ones in the province, from Ferraz all legal resources were exhausted to recover the seat of Carlos García Adanero.

An armchair whose history began on Friday, July 28, when the foreign vote granted the 137th deputy to the PP. As a result of this increase, the ideological blocks that will take shape on August 17, the date on which the Congress is constituted, remain tied at 171. On the one hand, there is the one made up of PP (137), Vox (33) and UPN (1). In the other converge forces such as PSOE (121), Sumar (31), ERC (7), EH Bildu (6), PNV (5) and BNG (1).

Two formations remain in political limbo: Canary Islands Coalition (1), whose future representative in the Lower House, Cristina Valido, declared last Monday on Cadena Ser that they are willing to maintain a “bilateral negotiation” with either of the two formations majority as long as “Canaries and their problems” are on the table. Although with two red lines: “the extreme right and the extreme left”, which eradicates Vox and Sumar from the equation.

The other group is Junts. Carles Puigdemont's party, which has 7 deputies and will foreseeably have the key to decide whether to make Sánchez president. A key, unless the Canary Coalition votes in favor of the socialist leader, which only fits yes. This would mean, as the parliamentary spokesperson for the independence party, Miriam Nogueras, already said, that Pedro Sánchez will not get that support “in exchange for nothing.”