The Citizen Participation (Participación Ciudadana – PC) civic movement announced on Tuesday, 10 March 2020, that it will deploy more than 2,600 election observers during the extraordinary municipal elections to be held on 15 March. The election is the same that was aborted on 16 February after the e-voting machines did not upload the opposition ballots correctly. The number of observers is 30% more than the 1,800 accredited observers that had been approved for the earlier election.
Sonia Diaz Inoa, general coordinator for PC, said that the observers will be stationed at the 158 Municipal Electoral Boards. She said the observers will be divided into those that will be mobile, observing the election day in different voting places and in the streets, and those that will oversee the opening of the voting tables to the transmission of the vote in one of the voting centers.
She said that democracy and transparency of the process depends on each and every citizen.
A digital platform, https://atentocontuvoto.org/ enables citizens to report any irregularities on the election day. The platform provides a georeferenced map for reporting irregularities and crimes during the campaign days and on the election day. It enables the posting of photographs, videos or audios.
PC also encourages people to send cases of irregularities and more on the election to them at delitoelectoral@pciudadana.org or the WhatsApp 809-764-4952.
“These tools are for each citizen to commit to being a guardian of our weak democracy, so that we do not remain silent if we witness any electoral crime or offense and report it,” she said. The new facilities are enabling the organization to gather evidence on political patronage and motivate the state to undertake its responsibility to combat this practice.
“Democracy is built by all of us, and the transparency of the process depends on each and every one of us. This tool is for each citizen to commit to being a guardian of our weak democracy, so that we do not remain silent if we witness any electoral crime or offense and report it,” she said.
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Z101 Digital
11 March 2020