M
Matilda
Guest
I have just been to vote for the first time as a Dominican. No one offered to buy my cedula and the voting station was policed and with more electoral personnel than voters. A very simple system, using a touch screen computer, and at the end a ticket is printed out which you fold in four (I was told) and put in a cardboard box. For those who do not know what is happening today:
1. Today people vote for who will be the presidential candidate for the ruling PLD party, in which there are two front runners, Gonzalo Castillo (the choice of current president, Danilo Medina, and former president Leonel Fernandez. In addition you vote for your PLD candidate for the local positions of senator, deputies, mayor and councillors. Everyone on the electoral roll has the right to vote.
2. Also voting for the PRM candidates - front runners for presidential candidate being Hippolito Mejia and Luis Abinader. You can only vote if you are a member of the PRM party and listed on their voting register.
3. Reports around the country of a few shootings, lots of cases of cedula purchasing and members of the PRM are cross as some could not vote for their presidential candidate as they were not on the PRM voting register.
4. The mother of Gonzalo Castillo pressed the button on the computer to say she did not want to vote - by mistake!
5. The results should be quick as it is all electronic, but given lack of luz or internet at some places, and the insistence by Leonel Fernandez that 20% of the votes should be manually counted (wonder how he knows that the electronic system can be manipulated) it may take a while.
Matilda
1. Today people vote for who will be the presidential candidate for the ruling PLD party, in which there are two front runners, Gonzalo Castillo (the choice of current president, Danilo Medina, and former president Leonel Fernandez. In addition you vote for your PLD candidate for the local positions of senator, deputies, mayor and councillors. Everyone on the electoral roll has the right to vote.
2. Also voting for the PRM candidates - front runners for presidential candidate being Hippolito Mejia and Luis Abinader. You can only vote if you are a member of the PRM party and listed on their voting register.
3. Reports around the country of a few shootings, lots of cases of cedula purchasing and members of the PRM are cross as some could not vote for their presidential candidate as they were not on the PRM voting register.
4. The mother of Gonzalo Castillo pressed the button on the computer to say she did not want to vote - by mistake!
5. The results should be quick as it is all electronic, but given lack of luz or internet at some places, and the insistence by Leonel Fernandez that 20% of the votes should be manually counted (wonder how he knows that the electronic system can be manipulated) it may take a while.
Matilda