Fraudulent registration in Colombia’s electoral process
Fraudulent registration in Colombia’s electoral process
Feb 23, 2014 posted by Nathalie Brichard
“In Colombia, elections are stolen,” said the Director of Colombia’s National Registrar’s Office, Carlos Ariel Sanchez Torres, in 2007.
Colombia indeed suffers from several problems in its democracy that increase electoral fraud and disturb the electoral process, affecting the outcome of elections. The Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) documents more than 50 types of electoral fraud, such as the “pregnant ballot box” — a practice that involves extra ballots being inserted for one candidate or party — some of which can be prevented or reduced if people are present to check and control the electoral process. On Election Day in Colombia, witnesses from the various political parties, official vote counters, and oversight commissions are all expected to be present at each voting station throughout the country. Additionally, the MOE trains volunteer observers in matters pertaining to the Colombian electoral system and electoral crime, including methods and techniques to track irregularities in the electoral process.
Observers alone, however, cannot track and denounce all electoral fraud, and need the support of the legal authorities. One of the major problems in Colombia is identity fraud, and dealing with this requires first that there be an updated population and electoral census. In previous years, the database has been dramatically out of date, leading to situations, publicized in the news media, in which dead Colombian citizens voted and participated in local or national elections.
In 2005, the National Registrar’s Office, in charge of the national civil registry and the technical setup of the electoral process, started to bring Colombia’s electoral database up to date, and since 2010, electoral authorities assure that it is impossible to use a dead citizen’s identity to vote. More than 6 million names were removed from the voter registry between 2005 and 2013, including the recently deceased and people whose names had been double-registered. The new automatic system also ensures that Colombians are added to the list as soon as they turn 18, the legal voting age in the country.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/fraudulent-registration-colombias-electoral-process/