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Article 44
 

44.1. The General Council has the following responsibilities:


a) To approve and issue the necessary internal regulations for the correct exercise of the powers and responsibilities of the Institute;


b) To oversee the timely integration and proper functioning of the Institute bodies, and to be informed of all their activities through its President, the Executive Secretary and its commissions, as well as through the specific reports that the General Council deems it necessary to request;


c) To appoint the Executive Secretary by a two-thirds majority vote of its members, according to the proposal presented by its President;


d) To appoint, in the event of the absence of the Executive Secretary of the General Council, from among the members of the General Executive Board, the person that will act as Secretary of the General Council during the session;


e) To appoint the executive directors and directors of the technical units of the Institute, according to the proposal presented by the President Councilor. In the case of the executive directorates and technical units established by this Law, the appointment of their heads should be made by a majority of at least eight votes;


f) To appoint the public of f cials who during the electoral process will act as the presidents of the local and district councils and who, at all times, will serve as executive members of the corresponding committees;


g) To appoint and remove, where appropriate, the presidents and Electoral Councilors of the Local Public Bodies, in accordance with the procedures established by this Law;


h) To appoint by absolute majority, no later than September 30 of the year prior to the election, from the proposals made by the President Councilor and the Electoral Councilors of the General Council for this effect, the Electoral Councilors of the Local Councils;


i) To decide on the merger, alliance and coalition agreements signed by the national political parties, as well as the participation agreements made by the political associations with the political parties, in the terms of the General Law on Political Parties;


j) To oversee that the activities of the national political parties and the political associations are developed in adherence to this Law and the General Law on Political Parties and meet the obligations they are subjected to;


k) To oversee that regarding the prerogatives of the political parties they act in adherence to this Law and the General Law on Political Parties, as well as to the provisions of the regulations issued for this purpose by the General Council;


l) To dictate the guidelines regarding the Federal Register of Voter and to order the General Executive Board to carry out the studies and to formulate the projects for the division of the territory of the Republic into 300 single-member electoral districts and their capitals, the division into electoral sections to establish the territorial area of the f ve multimember regional electoral districts and the capital of the state that will be the capital of each one of them; as well as the territorial division of the districts on the local level and, if applicable, to approve them;


m) To decide on, in the terms of this Law, granting registration to the national political parties and to the political associations, as well as on the loss of registration in the cases established in the General Law on Political Parties, to issue the corresponding declaration and to request its publication in the Off cial Gazette of the Federation;


n) To permanently oversee that the Institute exercises its powers as the only authority in the administration of the State airtime in radio and television earmarked for the purposes of the Institute, for those of the other electoral authorities and for guaranteeing the exercise of the rights of the national political parties, political associations and candidates in accordance with the provisions of this Law and other applicable laws;


ñ) To approve the complete calendar of the federal electoral process, on the proposal of the General Executive Board; the designs for the voter cards with photography issued in the national territory as well as abroad; the design for the electoral ballots, the design for the Election Day certif cates and the forms for the other electoral documents;


o) To review and approve the reports submitted by the Auditing Commission;


p) To establish the expenditure ceilings for pre-campaign and campaign expenses that can be incurred in the elections for the President of the United Mexican States, senators and representatives;


q) To register the electoral platform that the national political parties and candidates should present for each electoral process in the terms of this Law;


r) To issue the Session Regulations of the local and district councils of the Institute;


s) To register the candidates for President of the United Mexican States and for senators by the principle of proportional representation; as well as the regional lists of candidates for representatives by proportional representation presented by the national political parties and candidates, as applies, informing the local councils of the corresponding Districts Capitals of this;


t) To register the formulas of candidates for senators and representatives by the principle of plurality, in a supplementary manner; 


u) To carry out the total count of the election of senators by the principle of proportional representation, as well as the total count of the election from all the lists of representatives elected by the principle of proportional representation, to make the declaration of validity of the election of senators and representatives by this principle, to determine the allocation of senators and representatives for each political party and give the corresponding certi f cates, in the terms of this Law, no later than August 23 of the election year; as well as to, before the Election Day, de f ne the statistical method that the local councils will implement so that the respective district council will make the recount of the ballots of up to ten percent of the polling stations in respect to the election of senators when the difference between the winning formula and that in second place is equal to or less than one percentage point;


v) To inform the Senate and House of Representatives about the granting of the certi f cates of allocation of elected senators and representatives by the principle of proportional representation, respectively, as well as about the f led complaints;


w) To receive the quarterly and annual reports that the General Executive Board produces, through the Executive Secretary of Institute, as well as the ones that the Comptroller General’s Of f ce should produce;


x) To request the General Executive Board to investigate, by the means within its reach, facts that signi f cantly affect the rights of the political parties or the federal electoral process;


y) To resolve the administrative appeals that fall within its competence, in terms of the law on the matter;


z) To annually approve the preliminary draft budget of the Institute proposed by the President of the General Council and, once it is approved, to refer it to the head of the Federal Executive Branch for its inclusion in the draft Expenditure Budget of the Federation;


aa) To hear the infractions and, where necessary, to impose the corresponding sanctions, in the terms established in this Law;


bb) To establish the policies and the general programs of the Institute on the proposal of the General Executive Board.


cc) To appoint, from among the Electoral Councilors of the General Council, the person who should provisionally substitute the President Councilor in the event of his def nitive absence and to inform the House of Representatives of the decision for the consequent processes;


dd) To decide on, by qualif ed majority, the creation of technical units and commissions, in the terms of this Law;


ee) To exercise the powers of assumption, attraction and delegation, as well as, where appropriate, to approve the signing of agreements regarding local electoral processes, in accordance with the regulations of this Law;


ff) To dictate the agreements necessary to organize the elections of the leaderships of the political parties that solicit this and to discount the cost from their public financing, in the terms established by this Law. The request should be presented to the Institute at least four months in advance. The Institute will, through agreement, establish the modalities that the political parties should comply with for the respective request, and one obligation will be to have the list of members updated in the register of political parties. Regarding the elections of the leaderships of the local political parties, the organization corresponds to the Local Public Bodies;


gg) To approve and issue the regulations, guidelines and agreements to exercise the powers established in Section B of Basis V of article 41 of the Constitution;


hh) To approve the federal and state electoral geography, in accordance with the results of the national population census;


ii) To issue the regulations for complaints and for auditing, and


jj) To establish the agreements necessary to carry out the previous responsibilities and the others mentioned in this Law and in any other applicable legislation.


44.2. The General Council, when holding the federal electoral processes, can establish the bases and criteria for inviting, attending to and informing the foreign visitors who come to learn about the modalities of the development of the electoral process during any of its stages.


44.3. Likewise, for the purposes of the organization of the local electoral processes, the mentioned regarding the powers of assumption, attraction and delegation of the Institute will apply, in accordance with the provisions of this Law.