Regional variations in cost of buying cedulas for voting purposes?

I'm doing a little bit of research into how much cedulas were sold for, for voting purposes last Sunday. I wonder if residents in different parts of the DR would be so kind as to ask a few questions in their localities and post here? I am curious to find out if there are regional variations in the 'going rate'.

Now that it's all done & dusted there doesn't seem to be a reluctance to share this information, although clearly anyone asking will be subject to people 'knowing people who' etc. Better if you can locate someone who actually sold their cedula and is prepared to tell you how much they got for it. I was thinking of calling this thread The Cost of 'Cleaning' Materials but decided that that could be misinterpreted..........:cheeky:

OK I'll start. In Puerto Plata RD$4000, information from a source who sold his cedula to PLD. Cross checked against others and RD$4000 seems to have been the going rate here in PP.

Hillbilly said:

It cost Geanette/Jeanette her bid, in all probablity, plus the alliances....Tsk tsk...

HB

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It's more than a probability that this is why Ginette lost, from what I'm hearing........

Matilda said:

In San pedro de Macoris at 2500 RD$. But the bigger deal is to buy the dirigentes. They are the people who take the people to vote and would normally give each person 200 - 300 RD$ to go and vote. They were bought for 40,000 - 60,000 RD$ which meant that they would then get up to 40 people to vote for whichever party bought them. More powerful than just buying a cedula.

Matilda

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Thanks for reminding me, Matilda. OK let's have 2 columns: price of individual voter cedula & price of dirigentes.

Looks like price for cedulas in Municipio Castillo, SFM was RD$2000
Matan dirigente PLD compraba c?dulas en el Municipio Castillo, SFM
Thanks Chirimoya for reminding me of that one.

On Friday they were lined up :cheeky: a long line (some of whom were doubtless early cedula sellers) lined up outside the Cedula office on Antera Mota to get their replacement cedulas.

I'm sure there are many variations depending on who is doing the buying, whether it is in a poor neighbourhood or more upscale one (yes apparently it happens in those as well) and for those selling on the day itself, what the state of play looked like at the polls. Where it was a clear wide margin there wouldn't have been much call for extra cedulas, where it was down to the wire, some sellers might have held out for a higher rate.

I'm getting emails from people who have various reasons for not wanting to post what they know (thank you all very much, and if anyone else wants to pass on info in this way, please do so). The range seems to be from RD$500-RD$5000 so far.

Hillbilly said:

It cost Geanette/Jeanette her bid, in all probablity, plus the alliances....Tsk tsk...

HB

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HB, thought you'd like to know, Ginette has issued an impugnaci?n:

Ginette Bournigal impugna elecciones Provincia Puerto Plata

EL PRD IMPUGNA ELECCIONES; REFUERZAN SEGURIDAD EN JUNTA MUNICIPAL ELECTORAL

Please keep the other info coming, folks. Price range now RD$150-RD$5000.

Adrian Bye said:

confirmed today: in jimani the losing side offered RD$500 per cedula and the winner paid $4000 per cedula. the difference for one of the political positions was 1000 votes, so it seems this cedula buying likely caused the loss.

is the entire election process in the country corrupted?

also how do we reconcile this with 75% voting tallies? I thought the cedulas are kept so no vote is placed? if people are voting with other people's cedula surely that is traceable?

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This year the JCE tried to combat what they knew in advance was going to happen (because it is a common practice) by issuing replacement cedulas. They stayed open until midnight Friday in order to accommodate the long lines of people wanting to get new cedulas. Clearly not all of those people had sold theirs earlier, but some had.

Usually when cedulas are 'bought' they are kept by the buyer until election day. But this time some people got replacement cedulas so could still go and vote. This might have accounted for some of the discrepancies in the tallies.

Then there are the people who have more than one cedula issued in different names (thus enabling more than one vote and/or more than one sale).

Since I first posed the question I've had quite a bit of information via email. It appears than in some areas the cedulas of deceased people were used. In fact there are quite a few deceased people still on the padron, the electoral rolls, so presumably they are entitled to vote! In other areas, the total of those voting was more than the officially registered number of voters for that location. Some municipalities had an impossibly high turnout, way out of line with the national abstention rate. In some areas, it is alleged that some votes 'disappeared' between having been cast in the ballot and the time when the counting took place. In other areas, at municipal level a political party was bribing people to vote against it's own candidate and to vote for the opposition candidate instead. Sounds incredible I know but there are always reasons for this sort of thing.

There is also the difference between, on the one hand, 'sore losers' who need to have a reason not to lose face & need to pacify their supporters, and, on the other hand, genuine losers who should not have lost. So a lot of accusations are around which are difficult to disentangle from reality. Plus there is more information 'out there' via the blogs, media etc. I've never really looked into this before so I thought it was about time I did. None of what I'm learning so far has shocked or surprised me but it has saddened & disappointed me.