Daniel Noboa Azín began to rise in recent days after the presidential debate where the public showed that, despite his youth, he was the most prepared of the participants and answered all the questions correctly without losing control.
Daniel Noboa and Verónica Abad, candidates for President and Vice President of Ecuador.
This August 20, 13.45 million Ecuadorians will go to the polls to choose a new president, assembly members and decide the future of oil extraction from Yasuní.
Ecuadorians must go to vote this Sunday, August 20, 2023, in extraordinary elections called after President Guillermo Lasso decreed the cross death.
These are extraordinary elections, not anticipated, since they take place after the dissolution of the Assembly. For this reason, the period of office of the authorities that are elected will not be the normal one -four years-, but they will work only until May 2025.
That year, there will be new elections for president and a new Assembly, which will have to serve the four-year period in office.
In these elections, Ecuadorians must choose:
- A presidential candidate, from among eight lists that will appear on the light brown ballot.
- 15 national assembly members, from among nine lists that will be on the purple ballot.
- 110 provincial assembly members, from among a hundred lists, which will appear on the light blue ballot.
- Six assembly members from abroad, from among multiple lists, who will not have a ballot, since the vote is telematic for Ecuadorians abroad.
Voters must also decide in the popular consultation to leave the oil from block 43, located in Yasuní, underground. While the inhabitants of the Quito canton must also vote in the popular consultation to stop mining in the Chocó Andino.
How to vote and not void your vote in elections.
In the Ecuadorian electoral system, the votes are divided into blank, null and valid. The valid ones are those that are assigned to a pairing or list, and only these are taken into account when declaring the winners.
The citizen can void the ballot in several ways, intentional or not. For example, a vote is voided if someone marks candidates from different lists, by writing the words “void” or “void,” or by crossing out the ballot paper. Any sign that crosses the ballot or is not intended to favor a certain candidate or list also causes the ballot to be voided at the time of counting.
Invalid votes are not assigned to any electoral option nor do they count towards declaring winners. The only way for the null to “win” an election is for this number of votes to exceed all valid votes, as happened in Calacalí.
In other words, for their vote to be valid on the ballot for the presidential binomial, the person must only check the box for the option they want.
In the assembly ballots, you must also choose a single list, be it from a political organization or an alliance. Since 2021, candidates from different lists can no longer be chosen, since closed and blocked lists were implemented.
In these ballots, it is not possible to “plan” either, that is, to draw a line above all the candidates of a certain list. Doing so would nullify the vote.
How to vote in popular consultations
On the ballots for the two popular consultations, citizens will find boxes with the “Yes” and “No” options. Voters must mark one of the two options, otherwise they will annul their vote.
In the case of the query about the Yasuní, there will only be one question in which the voter must mark their answer.
While in the Chocó Andino, there will be four questions. The citizen must mark his vote in each of them and may not make a single line on all four, as this would annul his vote.
