There are 160,508 members eligible to choose between Rui Costa and João Noronha Lopes, in the second round of the Benfica elections. There are 326 more than in the first round, on November 25th.
The new vote is scheduled for Saturday, the day of the game at Estádio da Luz, with Casa Pia (8:30 p.m.), with another historic vote expected, surpassing the 85,710 who exercised their right to vote on October 25th, with the current president obtaining 42.13%. Rui Costa was followed, in the vote, by Noronha Lopes (30.26%), in a race of six, also with Luís Filipe Vieira (13.86%), João Diogo Manteigas (11.48%). Martim Mayer (2.10%) and Cristóvão Carvalho (0.18%).
Benfica’s General Assembly Board (MAG) announced yesterday that it will maintain contact with the two candidacies, in order to promote active collaboration in improving the aforementioned conditions, with the aim of achieve “a record vote, again, exceeding the participation of 100 thousand members”.
In other words, around 15 thousand more voters than those registered in the first vote. This will lead to changes in the second round, in order to speed up voting and presentation of electoral results, which in the first round took 19 hours to be known. This time, it is estimated that it will be released in the early hours of the morning (05:00) on Sunday.
“Despite the overall success” of the previous vote, “situations were detected that must be corrected, implementing new processes”, informed the organization led by José Pereira da Costa. Thus, the second round will have an additional 72 voting booths, corresponding to 144 voting points, in addition to “improvements” being implemented in 44 polling stations.
“We will have, in total of 108 sections, 576 voting booths, 301 check-ins and 472 ballot boxes”, can be read in the statement from MAG do Benfica, adding that “priority access will be improved in all sections, particularly at Estádio da Luz, ensuring special care when accessing the pavilions”.
New processes were also implemented to identify members, “allowing, while maintaining effective confirmation of identity, the time spent at identification posts to be reduced by half”, according to the organization.
In the first round, the massive voting led to the ballots, particularly for members entitled to 50 votes, running out (there are 27,588 members with this number of votes). To prevent this from happening again, Benfica’s MAG printed more ballots and promoted the overall improvement of voting conditions, changing the voting location.
In Amadora, the vote goes to the Roque Gameiro School; in Barcelona, Spain, to the Meliá Sky Barcelona hotel; in Chaves, for the Premium Hotel; in Loures, to the Dr. António Carvalho Figueiredo School; in New Bedford, United States, for the local Casa do Benfica; in Paris, France, to the Mercure Paris Gare de Lyon hotel.
isaura.almeida@dn.pt