Colombia’s National Registrar has confirmed that all the necessary preparations have been made for the country’s second-round elections this Sunday. According to the Registrar, more than 32 million Colombians are eligible to vote in Colombia’s June 15 elections, both domestically and abroad. Early voting for the nearly 600,000 Colombian citizens living abroad started on Monday, with polling stations located in 64 different countries. Nearly 11,000 polling stations will be open in the country on election day. According to Radio W, the National Registrar has installed thousands of biometric identification tools throughout the country to combat voter impersonation fraud. Nearly half a million Colombian citizens will also be working as jurors to ensure that the elections run as smoothly as possible.
Despite these precautions, Colombian elections continue to be plagued by accusations of fraud, as can be seen by the nearly 5,000 reports of electoral regulation violations that the Agency for Electoral Transparency has received since the March congressional elections.
URIEL, the state agency in charge of receiving, analyzing and referring complaints of the electoral process to the appropriate authorities, said in a release on Monday that there were 4,636 reports of electoral irregularities this year.
Colombia’s elections have been marred with complaints of electoral fraud and vote buying. Reports of electoral fraud have more than doubled in relation to the 2010 elections, according to Bogota’s Blu Radio.
Full Article: 11,000 polls ready, overseas voting under way in Colombia’s presidential election.