Foreign Ministry must rent 59 premises abroad so that 390,000 migrants can vote

The Government will invest USD 1.9 million in voting abroad. The most complicated places to coordinate elections are Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Foreign Minister Gustavo Manrique and Government Minister Henry Cucalón spoke about the electoral process that will be carried out abroad, for the second presidential round and the voting that will be repeated for national and foreign assembly members.

Through its spokespersons, the Government said that it is working to comply with the organization of the logistics for the vote abroad, which will now be in person, after the failure of the telematic vote. This is despite the fact that “historically this process takes six months of planning and execution.”

The Chancellor explained that, following the decision of the National Electoral Council (CNE), they hope to achieve, “in record time,” the logistical processes within their jurisdiction: transfers of resources, rental of venues, legal authorizations in each city, organization of receiving boards of the voting, hiring of support staff.

Added to this are the communication and dissemination of the new in-person voting process and its specifications for each country, which is the responsibility of the Foreign Ministry.

The authorities reported that they allocated USD 1.97 million to comply with these aspects.

And he explained that there are 101 electoral zones. But 59 require the rental of external premises, since they receive 380,000 voters of the 409,000 Ecuadorians registered abroad. Based on the experience of embassies and consulates, the Government made “some technical recommendations to facilitate the process.”

For example: that voting in countries with a time zone of 12 or 14 hours difference with Ecuador, begin on days before October 15.

In addition, the Foreign Ministry determined three categories of difficulty for the foreign precincts: medium, high and low, for logistical coordination according to the number of voters. And that there are difficulties in transferring resources in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Russia.