CEP Regulations on the method for calculating votes

The CEP's regulations on the method for calculating votes, adopted under the amended 1987 Constitution at articles 90.1, 90.2, 94.2, 94.3, 134 and 134 bis, named articles of the electoral decree of 2 March 2015, and the arrêté of 29 March 2016. Their object is to define the method for calculating the majority required to determine the winning candidate in presidential and legislative elections, and the Council states plainly why it is issuing them: the calculation method laid down by the Constitution and the electoral decree needs to be made precise.

For the presidential first round, the absolute majority is calculated by aggregating all valid votes cast at every polling station across the national territory to obtain the national valid-vote total on polling day. A candidate's percentage is then the total of that candidate's valid votes nationwide divided by that national total, multiplied by one hundred; the candidate obtaining fifty percent of valid votes plus one valid vote is declared the winner in the first round. For senatorial races the same arithmetic applies at departmental level, aggregating all valid votes cast at every polling station in the department to obtain the departmental total against which each candidate's share is measured. Short as it is, this text settles a question that has decided Haitian elections in practice: what denominator the fifty-percent-plus-one threshold is measured against.