The “cedula,” the official ID card of all in the Dominican Republic is expired. The Central Electoral Board (JCE) has announced a pending procedure to issue new cards to all. But behind the process is a major challenge. As reported, there are an estimated 2.8 million cards that were issued irregularly.
This means the effort to issue new cards also encompasses the major legal entanglements of cases of people who knowingly or unknowingly acquired fraudulent identities. The matter is worse because based on the fraudulent identities, others were issued to their descendants and now need to be corrected. Thus, the issuing of new IDs needs to find solutions to the millions of people who may find their daily lives seriously impacted and turned upside down as the JCE civil registry officials sort out who is who.
A recent report in El Informe con Alicia Ortega gives insights into what is brewing and will be making headlines for months to come.
The JCE has announced the IDs would be issued this 2025. For months, members of the JCE have presented the challenges in meetings with political parties, business and civic society groups. They have explained the obstacles ahead as the effort to correct the deficiencies in the civil registry accumulated over decades is dealt with.
The Junta Central Electoral (JCE) has stated the correction process will be integrated with the issuance of the new identity and voter card (cédula).
The estimated 2.8 million IDs with irregularities is around 34% of the voter registry, which had 8,145,548 citizens for the 2024 elections.
The JCE has presented political party representatives with details about the bidding process for printing the new cédula, along with a report on the civil registry irregularities and plans to fix them.
Read more in Spanish:
Noticias SIN
Somos Pueblo
Diario Libre
Noticias SIN
Diario Libre
6 August 2025