Santo Domingo – Tomorrow, Sunday, the 18th, municipal elections will be held throughout the country, for which 8,105,151 voters will be registered and distributed in 16,851 polling places located in 4,295 precincts.
A total of 3,849 positions will be elected among 18,197 candidates to lead local governments at two levels of election: municipal and district.
A total of 158 mayors and an equal number of vice mayors will be elected. Also, 1,164 aldermen, a similar number of alternates, 235 directors of municipal districts together with deputy directors, and 735 vocals with their alternates.
Voting will begin at 7:00 am and will conclude at 5:00 pm. Then, the vote-counting process will begin, followed by the release of the results.
Two ballots
Voters will have two separate ballots since, in this election, there is no dragging. Therefore, the municipalities will receive one ballot with the mayoral bids of the different parties or alliances and another with the candidates for aldermen.
In the case of a municipal district, they will have one ballot with the candidates for directors and another with the candidates for councilors.
The ballot
Voters will exercise their right to vote only by presenting their identity and electoral card, even if they have expired since the Central Electoral Board (JCE) extended its validity until August when the renewal process will begin. However, the voter must be registered in the electoral roll, which the members of the polling stations verify.
Observation
As is tradition, the voting will be observed by several international organizations. This time there will be 14 missions participating: the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (UNIORE), the Electoral Advisory and Promotion Center of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIDH/CAPEL), the Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB), the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the Association of Women Electoral Magistrates of America (AMEA).
Orientation
To educate the voter to avoid the nullity of the vote and motivate citizen participation, the JCE developed a campaign in the population through the media, social networks, and house-to-house visits, showing the ballot models.
Contingency
Also, last Wednesday, the JCE released the protocols for sending data and issuing bulletins, which establish the procedure to be applied if the Equipment for Digitization, Scanning, and Transmission of Results does not work, in which case they will be digitized on a laptop. As for the transmission of results to the computation centers of the electoral boards and the parties, the first bulletin will be issued after 20% of the processing or at 8:00 pm with the amount processed.
The JCE installed a disclosure center at the Dominican Fiesta Hotel in the capital.
All ready
Since last Wednesday, the electoral materials have been on the electoral boards. At the same time, the voting centers, primarily public schools, already possessed the JCE for the final assembly of the democratic process.