What a night.
Don Benito and Villanueva de la Serena have been walking together since this morning as a single city —with 63,000 inhabitants and 710 square kilometers in area— after a heart attack count.
There were frenetic hours, of silence, of continuous calls, of pale faces, even among the representative of the Government of Extremadura, Yolanda García, who ran from one place to another with her cell phone glued to her ear in the data center for the press.
There were faces of disbelief among the politicians present;
other faces, more positive and smiling, asked for time and calm.
There was a lot of tension.
Hundreds and hundreds of WhatsApp messages were exchanged non-stop between residents of both municipalities.
Tens of thousands followed the count through Canal Extremadura,
“What is happening, please?”, was heard in the press room.
The silence was resounding.
She had to be seen to be believed.
Until half past twelve (two and a half hours later than planned) the final results were not known: yes to the merger by 90% of yeses in Villanueva and 66.2% in Don Benito, to the limit, because it was necessary 66% support in both territories.
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The local website commissioned by the two municipalities to follow the consultation live failed at the most inopportune moment.
If in Villanueva the result was a resounding support for the yes (nine out of ten Villanovans supported the merger), in Don Benito the count stopped short with 62% of yeses.
A fact that raised the suspicions of more than one at that time and that still hangs in the air, especially among Dombenite residents.
"Tongo".
"Whiff".
"What was going to happen."
The buzz was so great that even the City Council itself had to issue a statement after half past ten at night: “The Consistory defends the transparency of the scrutiny process of the popular consultation […] the vote count is being carried out without the backing of the electoral board, as is often the case in municipal and regional elections.
It is being done by municipal officials who are voluntarily carrying out a commendable job.”
But what was going on in there?
The computer failure, attributed by some municipal sources to the massive demand for citizen consultations on the result, led to the fact that it was the mayor of Don Benito, José Luis Quintana, who announced the official results of the votes cast at 11:24 p.m. through his Twitter account: “There has been a computer problem to publish the data of the popular consultation.
The recount, without the early voting tables, is: 6,741 YES votes, 4,039 NO votes, 47 blank and 57 invalid.”
There has been a computer problem to publish the data of the Popular Consultation.
The recount without the early voting tables results in 6,741 YES votes, 4,039 NO votes.
47 blank and 57 null.
– José Luis Quintana (@J_L_Quintana) February 20, 2022
In percentage it meant that at that moment there was no possible fusion.
Don Benito refused.
Those who voted on Sunday had spoken.
But the early vote still needed to be counted, that of the 4,315 neighbors who exercised their right to vote previously, between February 2 and 12.
These 4,315 ballots were key.
At least 3,285 yeses were needed to turn the vote around and give the go-ahead to the merger.
3,287 were reached.
To the limit.
Where have all these votes been since last February 12?
In a gray safe, similar to that of a small refrigerator, and located in an office on the first floor of the City Hall.
The man in charge of guarding and counting the ballot boxes that have forever changed the history of these two municipalities is 59 years old and his name is Luis Ángel Martín, secretary of the Consistory since January 1, 1999. This morning he climbed the stairs of the Town Hall with some championship eyes.
-What a night...
-No, well, it was one of those that you spend blank...
He says that what hurt him the most was seeing the faces of the municipal computer scientists, who are now taking all the criticism.
“They say that the problem is not theirs.
I am hurt by the comments you are receiving.
Nobody doubts any vote because it cannot be put”.
The early vote – and he shows a document to confirm it, and even opens the safe with all the sealed ballot boxes with the ballots inside – was as follows: 3,287 yeses, 987 noes, 31 blank and 10 null.
"It took a little while...
—That can be counted as many times as the result is going to come out.
And he explains: “Everything in life is as interpreted.
66.27% is a huge result.
The comparison must be made with normal elections.
And here the mayors decided to put the limit of 66%”.
An image of last night's vote count at Don Benito. ROBERTO PALOMO
-What is a null vote?
―It is the envelope that does not contain ballots, that is crossed out completely or that has inappropriate comments.
If there are five ballots with a yes vote, it is a valid vote.
Same backwards.
“Why is it valid?
“Because the will of the voter is clear.
The invalid vote is when the will of the voter is not clear.
If one puts seven nos, the no is clear.
And it is explained again: “Here, what has prevailed?
More than doing it fast, doing it well”.
It was an amount of 4,315 votes.
So that there was no doubt at the time of the count, there were representatives of the City Council, the Delegation of the Government of Extremadura, the Provincial Council of Badajoz and the Junta de Extremadura.
About eight, according to those present.
In addition to all the neighbors who wanted to follow the count live.
"No neighbor could object because each ballot was explained."
"Isn't four hours for 4,315 votes a long time?"
―You can put four people to count or 20. We were four so there would be fewer problems.
The important thing was not to give the data soon, but to be scrupulous.
"Did you go into a room afterwards?"
―Once the count was over, I and all the members of the assistance commission, the representatives of the City Council, the Board and the Provincial Council, went into a room.
No one could get in here.
According to him, they were around 30 minutes.
There they computed all the data in the computer and, later, they were made public.
"Why was it necessary to go to a room?"
“Because the computer was there.
The votes are in the safe, they can be counted as many times as they want.
―Were you in favor of the merger?
“Personally, yes.
"I vote yes?"
-Yes.
.@Ayto_DonBenito Minutes with data collected from the DB-VVA Popular Consultation in #DonBenito pic.twitter.com/RDWdqzSQQw
– Ayto. Don Benito (@Ayto_DonBenito) February 21, 2022
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