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Electoral Service

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Electoral Service

The Electoral Service of Chile (Spanish: Servicio Electoral de Chile), better known by its acronym Servel, is an autonomous constitutional agency responsible for overseeing electoral processes in Chile. It administers national elections and referendums, supervises political party operations, ensures compliance with campaign finance regulations, and maintains the electoral register and party registry. Servel is the highest administrative authority on electoral matters in the country.

Servel's legal framework is established by a constitutional organic law, and its internal organization, staffing, and operational regulations are defined by statute. The agency is headquartered in Santiago.

Servel began operating on 1 October 1986, as the legal successor to the Electoral Registry Directorate (Dirección del Registro Electoral). Judicial oversight of elections remains under the jurisdiction of the Election Certification Tribunal (Tribunal Calificador de Elecciones) and the Regional Electoral Tribunals. A constitutional reform in 2015 granted Servel full autonomy. Until that year, Servel was overseen by the President of the Republic via the Ministry of the Interior.

The origins of Chile's electoral administration date back to 1925, with the creation of the Electoral Registry Conservator (Conservador del Registro Electoral) through Decree Law No. 343. The office began registering voters on 15 April 1925. Decree Law No. 623, issued in October that year, defined the agency's initial staffing at six employees. Ramón Zañartu Eguiguren was appointed the first conservator.

Initially, the office compiled registration records from local boards. Its responsibilities later expanded to include cleaning and updating voter rolls, particularly after the passage of Law No. 4554 in 1929. The Electoral Registry Conservator was replaced by the Electoral Registry Directorate on 7 April 1931, under the terms of Decree with Force of Law No. 82, based on Law No. 4763. The Directorate operated until 1986 and was based in several locations over time, including offices in the National Congress building and, from 1957 to 1977, the former Mortgage Credit Fund building (now the headquarters of the Constitutional Court of Chile).

Following the 1973 military coup, allegations of fraud in previous elections led to a loss of confidence in the electoral system. In July 1974, the existing electoral rolls were destroyed, resulting in the loss of voter data from before 1973.

Servel was formally established by Law No. 18.556, published on 1 October 1986. It was housed at 611 Esmeralda Street in central Santiago, in a 1934 Art Nouveau building designed by architects Fernando de la Cruz and Hernán Rojas Santa María. Originally occupying only part of the building, Servel expanded to occupy the entire premises in January 1987.

In 2012, Law No. 20.568 introduced automatic voter registration and voluntary voting, and created a new Governing Council to oversee Servel. In 2015, Law No. 20.860 amended the Constitution to grant Servel full constitutional autonomy.

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