CARACAS.- The Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), which brings together the main opposition parties in Venezuela, requested the National Electoral Council (CNE) to extend by 15 days the period of registration and updating of data in the Electoral Registry (RE) for the the presidential elections on July 28.
The PUD made the request this Tuesday, April 16, the date on which the deadline established in the electoral schedule prepared by the CNE to carry out these processes expires. The party alliance argued its request based on the “high demand” of Venezuelans “inside and outside the country” who have not yet been able to register or update their data in the RE.
“From the Unitary Platform we demand that the CNE extend by 15 days the day of registration and updating of the RE by virtue of the high demand from Venezuelans inside and outside the country who have not been able to complete their procedure. It is a right of the Venezuelan people who want vote to change,” indicated the PUD on the social network
Until this Tuesday, the lines of voters who went to the CNE headquarters to register – those who will vote for the first time – or update their data remained.
For the presidential elections on July 28, the CNE activated 315 registration/update points throughout Venezuela.
The NGO Venezuelan Electoral Observatory questioned that the number of points is much smaller than what has been activated in previous electoral processes. Added to this is that this year has also been the shortest RE registration/updating day (it started on March 18), since it was not even a month.
In the 2012 presidential elections, the CNE activated 1,300 points and the period for the process established in the electoral schedule of that time was eight months, reported the portal Effect Cocuyo. For the 2018 elections, also presidential, the CNE reduced the registration and update points to 531 and the period was 25 days.
Situation abroad
Venezuelans residing in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay have expressed complaints about delays in the registration process in the RE at the Venezuelan consular offices in these countries.
On April 8, a group of Venezuelans residing in Buenos Aires delivered a letter to the Venezuelan Embassy requesting that the registration and update process be more expeditious. In the letter they stated that only four people were being treated per hour.
In Argentina, where only 2,000 of the 220,000 Venezuelans who are residing in that country are registered to vote. The process did not begin on March 18. Something similar happened in Peru.
“We are waiting for a relaxation of the deadline and a relaxation of the requirements that, according to the information that I have, was achieved in the city of Brussels, the capital of Belgium, the passport requirement was eliminated. in force and additionally the requirement of permanence citizenship, that is, in this case the permanent resident card as we have it here in Peru that they are demanding of us,” said Luis Villasana, organizational coordinator of Vente Venezuela in Peru.
Source: With information from Cocuyo Effect
