La Libertad Avanza Misiones pushes for a single ballot and the elimination of the ley de lemas for the 2027 local elections

Adrián Núñez, president of La Libertad Avanza Misiones The bill that La Libertad Avanza Misiones presented in recent hours in the unicameral Legislature rests on three pillars. First, it establishes the single paper ballot as the instrument for voting for provincial and municipal offices. In addition, it eliminates the lema system in the election of mayors. Finally, it incorporates the figure of "clean slate" (ficha limpia), an idea that the provincial ruling party had promoted before its fragmentation. The debut of this electoral reform would be in next year's elections, in which the current governor, Hugo Passalacqua, will seek re-election. LLA, through its president, Adrián Núñez, or through national deputy Diego Hartfield, will try to pull off a surprise and win the governorship. The proposal for a Misiones Single Ballot (BUM) establishes that the voting instrument be a ballot paper containing the entire electoral offering, both provincial and municipal, and of both branches: executive and legislative. "We want there to be a row for each office and a column for each party. They should be the same size and with equal graphic treatment. And we should have a ballot in color," Núñez explained in statements to Infobae. Diego Hartfield, former tennis player and current national deputy, is one of the possible libertarian candidates for governor The scheme prohibits dual candidacies and "colectoras" (multiple lists sharing votes). "Under no circumstances will the same list of candidates be allowed to appear in more than one column of the Misiones Single Ballot," it states. It also prohibits a political group from attaching its candidates to those of another. On the other hand, the voter must mark their choice with an X in each category. There is no option for a "complete list," as in other districts that have used this mechanism. With the BUM system, "the era of missing and stolen ballots is over. And also the advantage of whoever has the apparatus to print and distribute (ballot papers) throughout the province," Núñez noted. For the election of governor, vice governor, and mayors, the ballot must contain the names, nicknames, and surnames of the candidates with their respective color photographs on a white background. For the lists of provincial deputies and municipal councilors, it must contain at least the names and surnames of the first four candidates on the list. "We are called upon to make history. This is not a political demand, it is a citizen's demand for transparency, for agility," Núñez stated. The president of LLA Misiones also emphasized: "The proposal seeks to guarantee equal conditions between large and small parties. The ballot will be printed by the State under the control of the Electoral Court." The proposal presented by the libertarian force incorporates two important transformations for the political system of the "tierra colorada" (red-soil land). On the one hand, it ends the lema law for municipal elections. On the other, it incorporates the requirement that candidacies pass the "clean slate" filter. The first article of the bill proposes the repeal of the system of vote accumulation by lema or sublema. Through this tool, applicable only to voting for mayors, the candidate with the most votes from an electoral front adds the votes of the others in his space. Thus, the multiplication of sublemas, especially in important districts such as Posadas or Oberá, is a maneuver to funnel votes toward the main candidacy. Meanwhile, the clean slate proposal bars from being a candidate anyone with a conviction confirmed on second instance. The ban covers those who committed crimes against sexual integrity and public administration. It also applies to those who have committed homicide or injured a person, kidnappers, or those with convictions for slander and defamation, among other cases. Before the rupture between Passalacqua and Carlos Rovira that ended the force that governed the province for 20 years, the Frente Renovador had proposed its own model of "clean slate." Its scope was much broader. It restricted participation by those who engaged in animal cruelty, did not pay taxes, or did not pass a drug test.