Chapter II.

Article 81. The election of the President and Vice-President of the Nation, shall be made in the following manner:-The capital and each of the Provinces shall by direct vote nominate a board of electors, double the number of Deputies and Senators which they send to Congress, with the same qualifications and under the same form as those prescribed for the election of Deputies. Deputies or Senators, or officers in the pay of the Federal Government cannot be electors. The electors being met in the National-capital and in that of their respective Provinces, four months prior to the conclusion of the term of the out-going President, they shall proceed by signed ballots, to elect a President, and Vice-President, one of which shall state the person as President, and the other the person as Vice-President, for whom they vote. Two lists shall be made of all the individuals elected as President, and other two also, of those elected as Vice-President, with the number of votes which each may have received. These lists shall be signed by the electors, and shall be remitted closed and sealed, two of them (one of each kind) to the President of the Provincial Legislature, and to the President of the Municipality in the capital, among whose records they shall remain deposited and closed; the other two shall be sent to the President of the Senate (the first time to the President of the Constituent Congress).

Article 82. The President of the Senate (the first time that of the Constituent Congress) all the lists being received, shall open them in the presence of both Houses. Four members of Congress taken by lot and associated to the Secretaries, shall immediately proceed to count the votes, and to announce the number which may result in favor of each candidate for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the Nation. Those who have received an absolute majority of all the votes in both cases, shall be immediately proclaimed President and Vice-President.

Article 83. In case there be no absolute majority, on account of a division of the votes, Congress shall elect one of the two persons who shall have received the highest number of votes. If the first majority should have fallen to a single person, and the second to two or more, Congress shall elect among all the persons who may have obtained the first and second majorities.

Article 84. This election shall be made by absolute plurality of votes, and voting by name. If, on counting the first vote, no absolute majority shall have been obtained, a second trial shall be made, limiting the voting to the two persons who shall have obtained the greatest number of suffrages at the first trial. In case of an equal number of votes, the operation shall be repeated, and should the result be the same, then the President of the Senate (the first time that of the Constituent Congress) shall decide it. No scrutiny or rectification of these elections can be made, unless three-fourth parts of all the members of the Congress be present.

Article 85. The election of the President and Vice-President of the Nation, shall be concluded in a single meeting of the Congress, and thereafter, the result and the electoral lists shall be published in the daily-press.