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Uruguay The Electoral Process
Uruguayans have taken voting very seriously. Voting,
which
was obligatory, was not restricted by race, sex, religion,
or
economic status. Other rules governing suffrage included
mandatory inscription in the Civil Register and a system
of
proportional representation. These rules also included
prohibition of political activity (with the exception of
voting)
by judicial magistrates, directors of the autonomous
entities,
and members of the armed forces and police. In addition,
the
president of the republic and members of the Electoral
Court were
not permitted to serve as political party officials or
engage in
political election propaganda; all electoral boards had to
be
elected; a two-thirds vote of the full membership of each
chamber
was needed to adopt any new law concerning the Civil
Register or
elections; and all national and local elections were to be
held
on the last Sunday in November every five years.
Uruguay's electoral processes were among the most
complicated
known. The unusual Uruguayan electoral system combined
primaries
and a general election in one event. Primary and general
elections combined proportional representation with a
"double
simultaneous vote" (doble voto simultáneo). This
system,
as established by the Elections Law of 1925, allowed each
party's
sub-lemas, or factions, to run rival lists of
candidates.
Traditionally, under Uruguayan law the results of
political
elections were tabulated in an unusual fashion. Under the
1982
Political Parties Law, each party was allowed to present
three
tickets, or single candidates, each representing a
different
sub-lema, for executive and legislative posts, and
these
factions did not need the party's approval of their
candidates. A
voter selected a faction and a list of candidates within
that
sub-lema. The votes of all the factions were given
to the
party (lema) to which they belonged, and the
presidency
went to the candidate of the sub-lema that received
the
most votes within the winning party. Thus, even if a given
ticket
garnered more votes than any other slate running for
election, it
could not win unless its party also won. The governing
party was
actually the majority group within the party that won the
last
elections. The disadvantages of this system were that it
discouraged intraparty selectivity in choosing
presidential
candidates, often allowed politicians who received only a
minority of the vote to rise to power, blocked the rise of
new
parties and new leadership while encouraging
fractionalization,
and often resulted in a multiplicity of alliances or
combinations
of national and local candidates for office.
Election of members of the General Assembly was even
more
complicated. Election of the ninety-nine members of the
Chamber
of Representatives was based on the population in the
country's
nineteen departments, whereas the thirty members of the
Senate
were elected at large from the nation. Seats were
allocated on
the basis of each party's share of the total vote, but
each party
usually had various lists of candidates, among whom prior
agreements had been made to unify or transfer votes. As a
result,
there have been frequent complaints that voters never knew
for
whom they were ultimately voting in the congressional
races.
Electoral fraud, however, was precluded by the traditional
method
of decentralized vote-counting at thousands of
vote-counting
tables.
In addition, the Electoral Court supervised the entire
registration and voting process, registered parties and
candidates, had final jurisdiction in all election
disputes, and
supervised the functioning of the various departmental
electoral
boards. It also supervised the National Electoral Office
in
Montevideo, which had the responsibility for organizing
and
maintaining the Civil Register of all eligible voters in
the
country. One Electoral Court existed at the national level
and
one in each department capital.
Before an election, the General Assembly allocated a
sum of
money for the Electoral Court to distribute among the
political
parties in proportion to the number of votes a party
received in
the last election. These funds helped to defray campaign
costs.
Party-proposed ballots had to be presented to the
Electoral Court
at least twenty days prior to an election. After making
the final
verification of ballots, the Electoral Court could annul
an
election, but only if gross irregularities were found.
Data as of December 1990
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