#VotoPreso - A party where prisoners are not invited

The Chilean Constitution enshrines what is known as a veritable “civic death” of those deprived of their liberty.

While article 16.2 of the constitution notes that the right to vote is suspended if a person is accused of a felony offense or a crime which the law designates as terrorist activity, article 17.2 establishes that those convicted of a felony lose their citizenship.

Likewise, the country’s political and administrative authorities have, by means of a practice contrary to the most basic principles of rule of law, failed to establish an electoral mechanism that allows voting access to those persons who have been imprisoned but not deprived of their legal and constitutional right to vote. Consequently, in Chile those who find themselves subject to the cautionary measure of pretrial detention are in fact blocked from voting, even though there is no rule that requires such an action to be taken. The same hold true for those serving prison sentences of three years or less.

Nevertheless, this situation seems to have taken a new turn due to a series of ruling from the Supreme Court¹.

On that basis, the Supreme Court ordered the Electoral Service (Servel) and Gendarmerie of Chile to adoptall interinstitutional coordination necessary to guarantee that in the 2017 elections, those inmates who are legitimately entitled to vote can exercise their right.

Despite the value of the Court’s ideas, neither Servel nor the Gendarmerie seem to have the political will necessary to carry out the Court’s requirements. In the last primary elections, no mechanisms were developed to allow inmates to vote..

Before the primaries, and with the aim of verifying what measures Servel and Gendarmerie intended to adopt to comply with the Court’s ruling, we at the NGO Leasur have, via the Transparency Law, sent information requests to both institutions. We asked the Servel for information about the measures the agency would take in conjunction with the Gendarmerie to allow the prison population to vote in the primary election.

They informed us that they had asked the Gendarmerie to determine whether those who “benefited” from the Supreme Court rulings were still imprisoned, and if so, what steps prison administrators would take to transport them to their polling places. We asked the Gendarmerie for the same information; they indicated that the Electoral Service was the agency responsible for delivering the inmate’s criminal history.

It should also be noted that, when we requested a meeting with the Electoral Service to discuss the matter via the Lobby Law, they denied us, arguing that said law did not apply in this case. Thus, to date, both institutions have failed to recognized the Court’s rulings. By means of an risible formal exercise in shunting responsibilities, both institutions have disregarded the obligation imposed by the Supreme Court. It remains to be seen what will happen in the upcoming legislative and presidential elections.