Víctor Font asks FC Barcelona's Management Committee to implement electronic voting in the next presidential election

Here you can see the full letter (in Catalan)

The pre-candidate for the presidency of Futbol Club Barcelona and leader of the project Sí al futur, Víctor Font, asks the president of the Club's Management Committee, Carles Tusquets, ‘to consider the possibility of implementing electronic voting in the next elections [to the presidency of the Club] so that e-voting can coexist with the in-person vote at the polls’.

In a letter sent this Wednesday, the pre-candidate is ‘concerned about the effects that the Covid-19 pandemic will have on the electoral process’, and highlights the advantages of electronic voting to encourage participation: ‘casting it is quick and is easy to recount, it is electronically secure, and allows members to vote from home without having to go down to the mailbox to post the letter’. In addition, Font emphasizes, it offers ‘the maximum health guarantee, especially regarding those older members who, for fear of contracting the Covid-19, could end up abstaining’.

The president of the Club's Management Committee stated on November 2 that he would put ‘all the possible means’ to enable voting in the elections and added that ‘our Statutes do not allow electronic voting, but we can implement voting by mail’. In this sense, Font reminds Tusquets that neither of the two modalities is allowed by the Statutes and that he is ‘aware of the legal difficulties that electronic voting and postal voting present at the moment both in the legal system of the Club and in what depends on the Catalan Law of the Sport’. However, he is convinced that ‘a timely negotiation with the Catalan government and a transparent explanation to Barça members would allow us to overcome any legal obstacles that may arise.’ For this reason, Font asks Tusquets that he hopes that, with a view to the meetings that the chairman of the Management Committee plans to hold with the pre-candidates for the presidency, he will have made progress in the consultations suggested.

Sí al futur and electronic voting

Sí al futur included an item on the agenda of the latest Delegates’ Assembly, held on October 6, 2019, in which the Club was asked to adopt electronic voting. It did so thanks to the support of 4,669 members who gave their signature to make this possible. In the vote, the adoption of electronic voting won with 60% of the vote; specifically, 359 delegate members voted in favour, 173 against and 67 were blank votes. As the proposal needed two-thirds of the votes in favour to be passed, as it was an amendment to the Club’s Statutes, the motion did not succeed.

On the occasion of this initiative to collect signatures, Víctor Font deposited in the Club the information and software needed to make electronic vote possible in the next elections, so that some of the technical preparations that would have to be implemented could already be underway.