The PSOE denounces the Canarian Coalition before the Electoral Board for inciting to annul votes of its candidacy for Santa Cruz de Tenerife

The PSOE has denounced the Canary Islands Coalition of Santa Cruz de Tenerife before the Electoral Board for inciting them to annul their votes in this Sunday’s elections. In a letter to which this newspaper has had access, the Socialists allege that on the night of this past May 26, a few hours after the end of the electoral campaign, “with a clear intention” to “discourage” their vote and to “misinform” “Regarding the electoral procedure to generate null votes, a video began to be disseminated through WhatsApp groups of representatives and nationalist auditors that encouraged them to cross out the name of José Ángel Martín, number two on the list arrested last Thursday after a fight .

PSOE councilor José Ángel Martín resigns from all his positions after his arrest for an alleged assault in Tenerife

Further

Late this Saturday, the Electoral Board of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Zone has decided to file the complaint with the Provincial Electoral Board, understanding that it is not within its competence.

After learning of the aforementioned facts, Martín resigned from all his positions and announced that he would resign from his act as councilor before taking office, although his name will appear in second place on the PSOE ballots because they are already registered and new ones cannot be issued.

“A person with the most meager knowledge of the operation of social networks is perfectly aware that a video of this nature will expand its diffusion beyond the hours in which it begins to be disseminated, that is, during the day of reflection and the day of voting” , argue the socialists.

The complaint includes several screen shots, one of them from a WhatsApp group in which the message “resent many times” can be seen, a sign that the clip has reached a certain virality after being sent in a chain. Next to the multimedia file, the following appears: “The Electoral Board informs that the name of José Ángel Martín must be crossed out on the PSOE ballot for the Santa Cruz de Tenerife city council.” For the Socialists, this is “a false message imputed to the Electoral Board, as if it came from the electoral authority and offered a message of general interest to the citizenry.” Another of the screenshots provided in the complaint is its publication on Twitter.

The PSOE alleges that the video simulates “the generic deposit of votes in a ballot box” and an image of the ballot of the socialist candidacy for the Tenerife capital city council is used with the intention of “giving it greater credibility”.

For these reasons, they understand that the authors “are trying to transfer en masse” to all possible voters of the PSOE instructions that would annul said vote.

It concludes by asking the Electoral Board, based on article 50 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG), the transfer of the complaint to the Public Prosecutor in case there were indications of crimes, the placement in the electoral premises of Santa Cruz de Tenerife In a visible place, posters indicating that the intentional crossing out of a candidate on a ballot paper entails its nullity, as well as its withdrawal.