Key Benefits:
ACT 163 OF 1994
(August 31)
Official Journal No. 41,523 of 2 September 1994
For which some provisions on electoral matters are issued.
THE CONGRESS OF COLOMBIA,
DECRETA:
ARTICLE 1o. ELECTION DATE. The elections of Governors, Mayors, Deputies, Councilors and Ediles or Members of Local Administrative Boards, will be held on the last Sunday of October.
ARTICLE 2o. REGISTRATION OF CANDIDATES. The registration of candidates for Governors, Mayors, Deputies, Councilors and Ediles or Members of the Local Administrative Boards wins fifty-five (55) days before the respective election. Modifications may be made within five (5) days of the following.
ARTICLE 3o. VOTER REGISTRATION. The registration of voters and the zoning for the elections of Governors, Mayors, Deputies, Councilors and Ediles or Members of the Local Administrative Boards, will be opened for a term of (60) days after the election of President and Vice President of the Republic.
ARTICLE 4. ELECTORAL RESIDENCY. For the purposes of Article 316 of the Political Constitution, the residence shall be that in which the voter is registered in the electoral census.
It is understood that, with the registration, the voter declares, under the seriousness of the oath, to reside in the respective municipality.
Without prejudice to criminal sanctions, when it is found that the registered person does not reside in the respective municipality by means of a brief and summary procedure, the National Electoral Council will declare the registration without effect.
The Archipelago Department of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina is excepted in which the provisions of Decree No. 2762 of 1991 will continue to apply.
TRANSIENT PARAGRAPH. For the purposes of the final paragraph of this article, residents and natives of the San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina Archipelago Department will be able to vote in all 1994 elections with the presentation of the citizenship card only.
ARTICLE 5o. VOTING JURORS. For the integration of the voting juries will proceed as follows:
1. With ninety (90) calendar days prior to the date of the election, the Registrar of the Capital, Municipal and Auxiliary District will request the public, private, political directories and educational establishments, the lists of the persons who can provide the service of the voting juries.
The lists drawn up by educational establishments will contain names of citizens with a secondary level of education not less than tenth (10th) level.
2. The Municipal and District Registrars, by resolution, will designate three (3) main juries and three (3) alternates for each table, citizens not older than sixty (60) years belonging to different parties or political movements.
The main ones will be able to agree with the alternates the performance of the function alternating with each other.
The relatives in the fourth degree of consanguinity, second of affinity and first civil, of the National Registrar, or of the Registrar of the Civil, District, Municipal or Auxiliary State, or of the delegates of the Registrar. Failure to comply with this provision will constitute a cause of misconduct.
PARAGRAFO 1o. Nominators or Heads of Staff who omit to relate employees or workers eligible to be appointed as voting juries, will be punished with removal from office if they are public servants and, if they do not, with equivalent fines of up to ten (10) minimum monthly legal salaries in force, in favor of the Rotary Fund of the National Registry of the Civil State.
People who are without fair cause will not be able to perform the voting jury functions or leave them, they will be punished with the removal of the position they perform, if they are public servants. If they are not, the fine provided for in the previous paragraph.
PARAGRAFO 2o. The voting juries ' scrutiny minutes will be valid when they are signed, at least, by two (2) of them.
To jurors who do not sign the respective minutes, a fine equivalent to ten (10) legal minimum monthly salaries in force will be imposed in favor of the Rotary Fund of the National Registry of the Civil State, which will be effective through resolution dictated by the District or Municipal Registrars.
ARTICLE 6o. ELECTIONS FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC. In order to speed up the elections for President and Vice President of the Republic, these elections will be held in permanent sessions starting at 11 (11:00) of the Monday morning after the elections. The Auxiliary, Municipal, Capital District and other districts will consolidate the results produced by the jurors in the ballot papers.
The elections of the National Electoral Council delegates will begin at eight (8:00 a.m.) on Tuesday following the elections with the results of the municipal and municipal elections minutes of the Capital District and other districts. (a) that they have at their disposal and will be consolidated to the extent that they receive them until the scrutiny of the Department or Capital District is concluded, as the case may be.
PARAGRAFO. The National Electoral Council will carry out the scrutiny for President and Vice President of the Republic, of the votes cast by Colombian citizens residing abroad, based on the results consolidated from the respective embassy or consulate, sent by any viable means for the transmission of data that the Registrar of the Civil State considers reliable, according to the current state of the technology.
Minutes sent by fax will have the same value as the originals.
The National Electoral Council will resolve the disagreements between its delegates and consolidate the results. In public hearing it shall notify the declaration of the results and shall proclaim the election of the President and Vice-President of the Republic, in accordance with Article 190 of the Political Constitution. If not, it will indicate the two (2) formulas that will have obtained the highest results which will have to participate in the second vote.
For the second round, in the electoral card the formulas of the first two (2) majorities will be read in the same order and with the same number of the first.
The National Registry of the Civil State will have the material left over from the elections for it, destined for the Rotary Fund of the same.
ARTICLE 7o. ELECTIONS. It is up to the delegates of the National Electoral Council to make the votes cast for the Governors, to declare their election and to issue the respective credentials; to count the votes cast for Mayor of Santafe of Bogota, Capital District, to declare his election and to issue the respective credentials.
It is up to the departmental Scrutinizing Commissions to count the votes cast for the deputies, to declare their election, and to issue the corresponding credentials.
It is up to the District and Municipal Scrutinizing Commissions to count the votes cast for District and Municipal Mayors, Councilors, and Ediles or Members of Local Administrative Boards; declare their election and issue the respective credentials.
ARTICLE 8o. CAPITAL DISTRICT. The Capital District Scrutiny Commission shall practice ballot papers by District Capital District for District Council, declare the election and issue the corresponding credentials.
Capital District Auxiliary Counting Commissions will practice ballot counting for Local Administrative Board members, declare the election of Ediles and issue the corresponding credentials.
ARTICLE 9o. INSTALLATION OF VOTING TABLES. For the elections of President and Vice President, Governors, Deputies, Mayors, Councilors, Ediles, or Members of the Local Administrative Boards, voting tables will be installed in the same places where they worked for the elections. March 8, 1992.
ARTICLE 10. PROPAGANDA DURING ELECTION DAY. All kinds of political and electoral propaganda are banned on election day. Therefore, no t-shirts or any garment of allusive clothing to political propaganda, posters, flyers, gazettes or similar documents that invite you to vote for a certain candidate or simply, make it propaganda.
Authorities will be able to seize the respective propaganda, without holding the person who carries it.
ARTICLE 11. CONSULTATION FOR GOVERNORS AND MAYORS. The internal consultation of political parties and movements to choose their candidates for the election of governors and mayors will be carried out on the date that the electoral authorities will establish with after the Presidential elections.
ARTICLE 12. RECOGNITION OF CAMPAIGN EXPENSES. The National Electoral Council shall distribute the resources to which it may have taken place because of the financing of the campaigns for the elections of the corporations of 1994, in accordance with the law in force on the date of the registration and/or the elections were carried out. The same procedure shall apply for the other elections.
The National Electoral Council may not condition in any way the distribution and payment of state financing of the campaigns or add or modify the legal requirements for access to such financing.
ARTICLE 13. REVIEW OF BOOKS OF ACCOUNTS. The National Electoral Council shall have at the end of a month counted from the date of the presentation of the relevant book, in order to make observations, by means of a reasoned providence, to the accounts of the candidates for the Congress of the Republic. After a month, no observations have been made, the accounts and the books shall be deemed to have been approved in their entirety.
ARTICLE 14. BUDGET TRANSFERS AND ADDITIONS. For compliance with the provisions of this Law, the National Government is empowered to make the necessary transfers and/or budgetary additions.
ARTICLE 15. DECLARED INEXEQUABLE.
ARTICLE 16. COMPANION TO VOTE. Citizens who suffer from physical limitations and ailments that prevent them from using themselves, may exercise the right to vote "accompanied" to the inside of the voting cubicle. Likewise the over eighty (80) years old or those with advanced vision problems.
PARAGRAFO. The election and police authorities will give them all the necessary collaboration and will give the voting time to these people.
ARTICLE 17. BLANK VOTE. Voting blank is the one that was marked in the corresponding box. The electoral card that has not been crossed out in any box cannot be counted as blank voting.
ARTICLE 18. VALIDITY. This Law governs from the date of its promulgation.
The President of the honorable Senate of the Republic,
JUAN GUILLERMO ANGEL MEJIA.
The Secretary General of the honorable Senate of the Republic,
PEDRO PUMAREJO VEGA.
The President of the honorable House of Representatives,
ALVARO BENEDETTI VARGAS.
The Secretary General of the honorable House of Representatives,
DIEGO VIVAS TAFUR.
COLOMBIA-NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
Publish and execute.
Dada en Santafe de Bogota, D. C., at 31 August 1994.
ERNESTO SAMPER PIZANO
The Minister of Government,
HORACIO SERPA URIBE.
The Minister of Finance and Public Credit,
GUILLERMO PERRY RUBIO