Irregularities in the electoral process raise questions about the absenteeism

According to the National Electoral Council (CNE for its Spanish acronym), a total of 2,208,882 persons entitled to vote decided not to, that is, 19% of the electoral roll, marking a historic figure in the country.

Politicians and citizens believe the Ecuadorians are facing a possible “inflation” of the roll, especially because so far, the CNE has not delivered the census data to observers or political organizations. According to Article 173, literal 11 of the Code of Democracy, the CNE must deliver this technical document.

The first alert of a possible mismatch in the census was given by the Partido Sociedad Patriotica (PSP) and the Plurinational Coordinator of the Left Movements (MPD-PK), which concluded that there was approximately one million enrollees in excess, after making a cross data between the 2010 Census of Population and the Civil Registration.

Electoral Roll Inflation figure in each province.

These concerns are also endorsed by civil society. Researcher Juan Bernardo Leon made a practical exercise that suggests an electoral roll seemingly “inflated“:

• The number of people that in the year of the census were 12 years old or less, so in 2013 they had not old enough to exercise the right to vote.
• The number of people who died between 2010 and 2013 at 13 years of age or older.
• The migration toll of Ecuadorians who entered and left the country during the same period. These three items would total some 3.9 million voters.

So Leon concluded that the census for this process should be about 10.4 million people. In this way, a rise of more than one million voters could be maintained, which would correspond to the “inflated” electoral roll.