The court said in a press release Monday that, in light of recent misinterpretations in the media and in the government’s press conference of August 3, 2012, regarding the data required by the Constitutional Court from the government, the court’s plenum asked the government to provide the permanent voter lists updated on the basis of law no. 3/2000, based on which the impeachment referendum was organized on July 29, 2012.
The Court had not asked the governmnt to update voter lists, but to provide it with the voter lists used in the referendum.
The court said last week that it rescheduled its ruling on the referendum for August 31 to settle the case with urgency.
The impeachment referendum required a voter turnout of more than 50% of eligible voters to be validated. The Central Electoral Bureau announced the voter turnout was 46.24%, of which an overwhelming 87.52% voted to impeach the head of state.
The Interior Ministry said 18,292,514 eligible voters were registered by July 29, when the referendum was held. The governing Social Liberal Union, which had the president suspended for overstepping his powers and called for the referendum, has asked that the number of eligible voters stated by the ministry be corroborated with the findings of the Statistical Institute, which ran a population census last fall, to see if the voter turnout was calculated correctly.