Pandemic and telematic parliamentary vote

Abstract

On the basis of the conception of telematic remote vote as an exception to the attendance inherent in the Parliamentary Chambers, this paper analyses the evolution suffered by the regulation of this form of voting in the Congress of Deputies and the Senate and in the Regional Parliaments, of whose Regulations seven were subject to reform in this matter in the year 2020. The analysis of these reforms, as well as of the most recent implementing rules, reveals that some progress has been made in trying to solve problems inherent to telematic vote, derived mainly from being prior to the in-person voting. Even so, despite the intensive and extensive use of the mechanism during the pandemic, the lessons learned –beyond solving some technical difficulties– have not been fully incorporated into the rules. As an exception to the general rule of parliamentary attendance, the regulation of telematic voting should cover as many problems as possible that arise from its application, yet many of those identified during the pandemic remain unresolved.