Election Day

I was among a group of more than 80 people from various countries, some as far away as Australia, who observed the Municipal and Legislative Assembly elections on Sunday, January 18 through the Center for Interchange and Solidarity (CIS). Other international observers working through other organizations including a coalition of US-El Salvador Sister Cities and Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and the European Union and the Organization of American States, also participated. This election and the Presidential election in March will be the most highly observed elections in Salvadoran history.

I and 5 others were assigned the voting centers in Cojutapeque in Cuscatlan, a municipality northeast of San Salvador. The majority of Salvadorans do not vote in a location near their homes. Each person is assigned a voting center based on the first letter of their last name. Married women are assigned according to their maiden names so husbands and wives must travel to different centers. This is a real hardship for those without automobiles. In Cuscatlan, however, there is a pilot residential voting program. This worked very well so the hope is that the government will extend this practice to all voters.

In El Salvador voters do not vote for candidates; they vote for a party. There were 6 political parties represented on the ballots. The insignia of each party appears on the ballot and voters indicate their choice by marking an X across the party of their choice.

Most voting centers are in schools which are built in the Spanish style with the classrooms opening onto a courtyard. Voting tables, booths and ballot boxes are crowed together on the sidewalks in front of each classroom offering little privacy. Representatives from each party sit at a table and compare names with ID’s and distribute ballots in the same way election judges do in the U.S. Since there were two items to be voted on, the Legislative Assembly ballot was one color and the Mayor ballot another. After voting, the ballots were placed in the ballot box of the corresponding color.

After the polls close, the election officials open the ballot boxes one at a time, hold up each ballot for others to see and give the ballot to the member of the party indicated on the ballot. Then each party member counts the ballots for his/her party. At the table where I was observing the count was carefully double checked by other officials. However, I was told that other tables were not so diligent.

The process throughout the country was very peaceful. This is a positive change over past years. Members of the various parties joked around with each other and most disputes were settled peacefully. However, there were a number of examples of fraud and improper campaigning at the voting site.