More than four hours after the opening of the electoral colleges in Colombia for the crucial second round of the presidency, leaders of the Historic Pact denounced some irregularities found in the ballots, while the South American country’s elections are proceeding normally.
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Iván Cepeda, a Polo Democrático senator and re-elected by the Pact, also asserted that they have received “evidence that in some parts of the country” where they received a majority of first-class votes that have ballots with lines, dots or strikethroughs in them the voting booth blank vote.
The congressman stressed via his Twitter profile that when voting, it is important to ensure that the ballot does not contain any points.
Gustavo Petro called for a “massive vote” this Sunday in the second round of the presidency in Colombia, in which he faces populist Rodolfo Hernández, to “defeat any attempt at fraud”.
“Today we must undoubtedly fend off any attempt at fraud with a massive vote,” Petro said after exercising his right to vote at a school in southern Bogotá.
As he had done all morning on social media, the Left candidate denounced that “ballots pre-marked with a dot” had been “distributed” in “constituencies” for the candidate of the Historic Pact in order to “systematically cancel votes”. that they would choose to change”.
In response, the National Register reported that this news was completely false. “We inform the public that the ballot for the second round of presidents, which will be handed over by the election juries on Sunday, June 19, has no deletions or markings.”
The registry office reminded the presidential campaigns that this Sunday the possibility of reaching the Casa de Nariño is denied and that the only valid results will be those issued by this body.
He did this by responding to a message sent by the candidate Gustavo Petro on his social networks just before the start of the elections in Colombia.
There are 39,002,239 Colombians eligible to vote domestically and abroad, 20,111,908 are women and 18,890,331 are men. For the polls, 100,809 tables were set up in 12,236 locations: 5,174 in urban and 7,089 in rural areas.
In the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá, Minister of the Interior Daniel Palacio, in the presence of the high authorities responsible for conducting this Sunday’s vote, began the solemn act of inaugurating the second day of the presidential elections.
The solemn act of setting up the second round of the presidential elections begins in the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá. Today Colombia elects the President and Vice President for the next 4 years #ColombiaDecide2022���� pic.twitter.com/ARfJpaGd8k
— Natalia Margarita (@NataliaMarg)
June 19, 2022
The president of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Colombia, César Abreo Méndez, said: “I call on the political actors and campaigns to accept the results. Act responsibly.”
For his part, National Civil Registry Officer Alexander Vega Rocha stated: “Colombia’s democratic institutions are stronger than any disinformation strategy.”
This formal act was repeated by the local authorities in the different departments of Colombia.
Minutes later, President Iván Duque opened the elections at Polling Station No. 1 in Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá and made statements to the press.
Another surprise was the presence of candidate Hernández at the polling station where he was supposed to vote, even though his campaign team had planned his presence in this Sunday’s election at noon.
“We have one of the strongest democracies in the hemisphere. We Colombians must vote without fear, without intimidation, without prejudice,” said the President.
About 40 million citizens are called upon to take part in the new voting day, which begins at 08:00 local time (13:00 GMT) and ends at 16:00 local time (21:00 GMT).
Colombians living abroad (around 972,764) started voting on June 13 and will complete it this Sunday.
The National Register, the body responsible for organizing elections in Colombia, said more than 12,500 posts with just over 102,000 tables have been set up in the country.
Petro, nominated by the Historic Pact Coalition, and Hernández, by the League of Anti-Corruption Leaders, took first and second place in the first round on May 29.
During the second round presidential elections in Colombia, follow all the incidents through our multiplatform and get all the information with the Telesur journalist team.@teleSURTv pic.twitter.com/8gJWCqOirf
— Hernán Tobar (@TobarteleSUR)
June 19, 2022
Petro received a total of 8,527,768 votes that day, accounting for 40.32 percent of the votes cast, while Hernández received 5,953,209 (28.15 percent).
After the deadline for the receipt of the votes, the votes will be examined by the voting juries.
The National Civil Registry will issue pre-count bulletins this Sunday to provide updates on how Election Day is progressing. However, these reports have only informative and no legal value.
The official results will be announced once the counting process has been completed, which includes the stages of counting, verifying, classifying and consolidating votes.