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Ecuadorians in Italy and Spain protested for not being able to vote
Posted On 20 Feb 2017
Consul Lorena Escudero acknowledged that those who arrived after 16:00 could not vote in Madrid. Official sources estimate that around two thousand immigrants failed to exercise their right.
Throughout the day, more than 25,000 citizens entered La Nave, a place that hosted the 124 polling stations for 62,783 voters (in Spain, the number rises to 168,435). Around 22,000 people could vote. The remaining three thousand were considered as registered.
Shouting “we want to vote” hundreds of people crowded at the gates of that place.
“A large number of voters in Madrid determines, and this has already been seen on several occasions, that not everybody can vote,” Escudero stated.
In this sense, she recognized the need for the National Electoral Council (CNE) to “reconsider the technical conditions for the organization of a process as complex as that, to double its efforts and change the law if necessary.”
In Spain, 350 polling stations were set up for 168,435 voters. A 40% voted, according to data from the Ecuadorian Embassy in Spain.
In Milan, Italy, there were protests from Ecuadorians who also could not vote, according to videos that were broadcast on the internet.
