The National Election Commission (CNE) received 838 complaints or requests for opinions related to the municipal elections by October 2, having ruled on 216 of these cases, with 19 forwarded to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the updated Summary Report of Processes by complaint/requests for opinion and requests for information, 786 complaints and 52 requests for opinion were received regarding Sunday’s elections.
The CNE deliberated on 216 cases, with the remaining 622 still pending.
Among the rulings, the commission decided to refer 19 cases to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and 43 related to administrative offense proceedings.
Additionally, there were 15 more administrative offense proceedings, 50 complaints sent to the Regulatory Authority for the Media (ERC), 45 cases where opinions or clarifications were issued, and 22 that were filed, along with 12 resulting in injunctions, eight in warnings, and one recommendation, with one case where the decision was unspecified.
Most complaints or requests for opinions originated from citizens (442 cases), but political parties were also significant contributors, particularly the PS, with 75 cases.
Following are party coalitions (73 cases), PSD (58), municipal bodies (43), groups of voter citizens (40), Chega (29), the CDU – PCP/PEV coalition (16), Liberal Initiative (12), and BE (11), among others.
Local municipal bodies were the main targets, with 604 cases, about 72% of the total.
Following were media outlets (88) and social networks (55), along with public entities (29), party coalitions (23), as well as the PS (17), the PSD (11), or Chega (10).
The processes of complaints or requests for opinion mainly referred to media outlets, such as social networks (371 cases) and posters (69), focusing primarily on institutional advertising (368), neutrality and impartiality of public entities (239), commercial advertising (66), journalistic treatment of candidates (64), and propaganda (57).
In the recently published report, the CNE also stated that between July 14 and October 2, it received 4,680 requests for information by phone and 3,303 in writing.
The main topics of telephone inquiries were candidacies (925 cases) and early voting in Portugal (779).
Written requests principally concerned propaganda (534 cases), early voting (457), and delegates and table members (399).
Most written requests came from citizens (2,232), with local municipal bodies responsible for 424 and candidate groups of voter citizens for 195.
