Argentina Fixes Cumbersome, Multi-Ballot-per-Person Voting System AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko

The Congress of Argentina approved a new law this week to streamline the voting process in the country through the implementation of a single-paper ballot.

The new Single Paper Ballot (BUP), which will make its debut in the upcoming 2025 legislative elections, replaces Argentina’s roughly 100-year-old individual paper ballot system with a single ballot containing all of an election’s candidates, allowing voters to cast a vote by simply marking their chosen candidate.

The bill, spearheaded by lawmakers from the ruling Liberty Advances (LLA) party led by President Javier Milei, was approved on Tuesday with 143 yeas, 87 nays, and five abstentions. While the bill also received the support of several opposition parties, all but one lawmaker from the leftist Union for the Fatherland bloc firmly opposed the bill. 

LLA lawmakers stated upon the bill’s approval that “today is a great day for democracy” and that this “law will make it possible to put an end to a corrupt practice,” citing the theft of ballots as one such example of the problems of the current system.

Under the old ballot system, Argentine political parties, using public funding, were responsible for designing, printing, and distributing individual ballots of their candidates in voting centers. On election day, Argentine citizens, upon verifying their identity, were given an empty signed envelope before heading to a “dark room” where the voter — depending on the nature of the election — introduced one or more individually printed ballots in the envelope before casting his or her vote in the box.

According to local media, main criticisms of the old system included the money given to the parties to print ballots, which “in some cases was used for other purposes;” monopolies by printing services; and the theft of ballots during elections which required a large supply to guarantee replacements. The individual ballot system was also criticized for hindering smaller parties that do not have the distribution logistics capabilities that larger parties do.

The new streamlined BUP system will feature a single official ballot printed and distributed by the Argentine Interior Ministry that will feature all of an election’s participating parties arranged in columns, with positions to be elected in rows. The order of the parties will be determined by a draw. Every party and candidate will have the same space on the ballot. Voters must mark with a cross the box of their chosen candidates.

According to experts cited by the Argentine outlet Infobae, the BUP allows voters to have a greater degree of freedom when choosing candidates, giving them the option to cast individual votes for president and lawmakers even if they belong to different parties or alliances in the ballot — something that, the experts pointed out, had to be done by cutting out ballots before placing them in the envelope. Voters are able to cast “blank” votes by leaving the boxes unchecked.

The Argentine presidency released a statement celebrating the bill’s approval on Tuesday evening, asserting that the approval set “a debt of the democratic system with the Argentine people.”

“The Single Paper Ballot puts an end to a voting system that prevailed in the decadent Argentina of the last 100 years, which benefited the political caste and facilitated all kinds of scourges when citizens were called to the polls to perform the sacred act of voting,” the statement read.

“This new electoral instrument, which will begin to be used at the national level as soon as next year’s legislative elections, will be the system that Argentines will use to elect their representatives in the new Argentina proposed by President Javier Milei for the next 100 years, where cheating and electoral fraud will not dominate the political process,” the statement continued.

The Argentine presidential office asserted there will be a voting system that is up to the task in the “new Argentina, without inflation, with an orderly economy and no chronic deficit, with a security model that fights crime and a judicial system that puts an end to the doctrine in favor of criminals.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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