Municipal elections cancelled; electoral crisis unfolding

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - In Brief 16 Feb 2020 by Pavel Isa

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This Sunday, the day when municipal elections were scheduled to be held, the unexpected happened: after 11am, the electoral board decided to cancel the elections. The decision was made due to the serious problems that affected the electronic voting system. The president of the electoral board indicated that the problems began to be detected the night before and that, on the day of the vote, most of the polling stations where electronic voting was scheduled, the voting systems did not properly loaded voting options. The electronic voting was going to be carried out in only 18 municipal entities, out of a total of about 400. However, these municipalities have 62% of the total number of voters. Although there were no problems reported in the municipalities voting manually, the board decided to cancel the entire process. The annulment of the elections has been an unprecedented event in the country, accustomed to regular elections without shocks of that magnitude. It has been extremely embarrassing for the electoral board and for Dominican democracy and has generated an electoral crisis and a crisis of credibility in the electoral system whose solution is not yet clear. The political parties have severely recriminated the board for their obvious incompetence, have explicitly suggested or denounced that there was a deliberate action to hinder or distort the vote, have demanded a thorough investigation and that those responsible pay the consequences. Some voices have called for the immediate resignation of that electoral board. In addition, the parties have recriminated each other, accusing themselves of having contributed or plotted the failure of the vote. Despite the accus...