US Representative Adriano Espaillat is leading the drive on behalf of Dominicans abroad who want to exercise their right to vote for the President of the Dominican Republic. The absentee vote accounts for 8% of total vote in the DR. In other words, the absentee vote can decide an election.
In a televised interview on 12 May 2020, Vice President Margarita Cedeño, who is also the vice presidential candidate for the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), practically discarded the idea that Dominicans living abroad would be able to vote in the 5 July 2020 election, given the spread of the epidemic in key Dominican voting districts. Instead she suggested that mechanisms be developed so that Dominicans living abroad be able vote at a separate future date for their representatives in the Dominican Congress.
Dominican-American elected legislators in the United States think differently. Dated 12 May, these legislators sent a letter to the president of the Central Electoral Board (JCE) Julio Cesar Castaños Espaillat, urging the JCE to get on with the efforts to organize the vote in the United States. In the letter, the legislators highlight that on 23 June 2020 the state of New York has agreed to hold presidential, congressional and state primaries, adhering to sanitary protocols. He said that other states will carry out their primaries around the same date as the Dominican presidential election, taking the due health precautions.
Espaillat also spearheaded a Zoom meeting with the participation of several Dominican-American elected officials to push the JCE to ensure the inclusion of Dominicans living in the United States in the upcoming presidential and congressional election in the Dominican Republic. Espaillat says that 589,497 Dominicans are registered to vote abroad. Of these around 250,000 are located in his state of New York. Espaillat is lobbying to ensure they can exercise their right to do so, as stated in the Constitution of the Dominican Republic. Participating in the Zoom meeting were elected officers from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Maryland, among others.
Espaillat disputed that US authorities have said that only elections by mail ballot can be held in the US. On his Facebook page, Espaillat noted that the only instruction US authorities have given is that countries celebrating absentee voting adhere to each country’s sanitary protocols for elections under Covid-19. “We salute and back the Sanitary Protocol for Voting Places that the JCE and Dominican political parties are preparing so that the elections of 5 July can be held with due safety considerations and respecting the people’s constitutional rights. The JCE had said in the past that the US would only allow voting by ballot and that this modality is not valid in Dominican electoral law or the Constitution.
“We are completely sure that the presidential and congressional elections can be held here on the established dates with the implementation of sanitary protocols established for the Dominican Republic,” said Espaillat.
He motivated his fellow elected officers that participated in the Zoom meeting to locate the possible voting places and work with the members of the JCE so these can be readied for the 5 July Dominican presidential election. He also said the Zoom meeting seeks to unite voices so that now and in the future the group can have the capacity and maturity to speak as one on important topics.
Espaillat stated: “We want to make a reality that on 5 July Dominicans can vote,” he said, highlighting that Dominicans abroad are “a community that contributes so much and just asks for the right to vote.”
In an interview later in the evening for the “Esta Noche con Mariasela” TV show, Espaillat estimated at around 250,000 the registered voters in New York State. He said that in the 2016 election, around 60,000 of these voted. He said he believed many Dominicans will turn out to vote. He said, regardless, the right to vote is sacred and motivated the JCE to take the actions so this can happen.
In an interview with Diana Lora and Patricia Solano for La Cuestion radio talk show, Carlos Pimentel, executive director of Citizen Participation, said the letter is a way of telling the JCE that “there can are no excuses” for not organizing the vote in the USA. The director of the leading civic watchdog organization said the JCE needs to clarify the steps it is taking to guarantee the vote of Dominicans abroad. “We have not seen evidence of concrete steps being taken to ensure the inclusion of Dominicans in the election,” said Pimentel. “That Dominicans abroad not vote is not an option, it violates the Constitutional and the rights of Dominicans abroad,” he said.
Follow the story:
Facebook
Facebook
Super7FM
Hoy
YouTube – Esta Noche con Mariasela
14 May 2020