Polling station – El Mostrador

As well as the name, the domicile gives us individuality and designates a permanent relationship with a fixed and determined place (territory), which allows us to exercise rights and, likewise, imposes obligations on us. In the electoral field, the law defines it as that located within Chile, with which the person has an objective link, either because he habitually or temporarily resides, exercises his profession or trade or develops his studies in it, additionally, the last one declared as such before the Civil Registry and Identification Service or before the Electoral Service will be considered as electoral domicile.
In this perspective, it is that the legislation admits that one can have several addresses, but in the electoral field the one we declare as such must meet objective characteristics, such as a permanent link over time, whether work, academic or where we actually have our main residence, in order to prevent malicious changes of address from being generated for purely electoral purposes, known as the “carrying of votes”.
Each person is responsible for updating his electoral address, as this will allow him to exercise his right to vote in a given commune and with respect to a specific district and constituency. However, if someone maliciously uses our home, the law punishes such action, since this could have effects with respect to other areas, such as an embargo or the notification of a claim.
In effect, the law punishes anyone who declares a false electoral address before the Servel or when declaring one in the same terms before the Civil Registry, for example, when renewing the identity card or obtaining a passport. In this way, if we discover that someone uses our address for electoral purposes, it is possible to report to the police or file a complaint in the respective Guarantee Court. All in all, one can also put the Electoral Service on the record.

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The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.

Original source in Spanish