Voting …

 

In the middle of a lazy Sunday afternoon, we got a phone call which galvanized us to action. We had to drop everything and go and vote!!

Today is Election Day throughout Ecuador, which we thought nothing of as we didn’t figure we had to do anything about it, but as it turns out, we did.

It would, of course, help if I start at the start.

About 18 months ago when our Residency Visas were approved, and we got our Cedulas (identification cards for Ecuador), we asked our lawyers who helped us through the visa process what the situation was as regards voting in elections.

They told us that if you are a citizen of Ecuador, legally you have to vote, and if you are a resident you can choose to register to vote. There are some reasons you may choose to be registered to vote (other than the desire to actually vote), such as if you want to open a bank account or start a business and some other things. (I’m a bit vague about this, as at the time we didn’t see the need to do any of those things so didn’t take much notice.)

Last year when the presidential election was on, it seemed that voting requirements were still the same and we were not required to do anything. But this year for the mayoral elections, change was afoot, we just didn’t know about it!

Election days are a big thing in Ecuador, and meetings are illegal. So, if you have a congregation meeting scheduled for election day, it needs to be changed to another day.

Yesterday, once our congregation meeting had finished, there was an announcement about voting the next day, alerting us to the fact that everyone who was a resident of Ecuador had to attend the polling places and cast a vote or otherwise incur a $45 fine. There was some confusion about this as it was different to what had previously been the case, and some had heard something about the elections and checked a government website to see if they were registered to vote and thought they were in the clear. And apparently people who had got their Cedulas fairly recently were automatically registered to vote, which many were not aware of. We thought we were in the clear, but apparently not.

We got the phone call from one of the brothers in the congregation around 3pm to confirm that every resident who held a Cedula needed to vote. So Brendan looked up the website to see where we were supposed to go, and off we went. Fortunately for us we didn’t have to go far. It appears that where you need to go vote will be fairly close to the address you registered when you got your Cedula. Bit of an issue if you have moved to another part of the country, though.

When we were up north last week, we met an Ecuadorian sister who had moved to another part of Ecuador from where her Cedula was registered (Guayaquil), and she was going to have to make the trip back to Guayaquil to register her vote, or incur the $45 fine. It was going to be a trip of a few hours by bus for her. Her sister married a brother in Canada and is currently living there, and she will incur the $45 fine because she is out of the country and therefore unable to vote.

A brother and sister who are now in our congregation in Cuenca have their Cedulas registered up north in Otavalo. Hmm. Could be difficult getting there on time if you were unaware of the new requirements.

From what I’ve heard, if you don’t have the card to say you have voted, it can create difficulties. For instance if you want to leave the country you may not be allowed to until you can get it all sorted out. Not so good if you are all packed up and ready to go.

We were somewhat nervous about the whole voting thing but it turned out not to be too difficult. The brother who rang Brendan told him what the procedure was, which helped.

We went to the assigned place where the voting was being held (a school), went to a lady sitting under a sign saying “Información” and showed her our Cedulas. She entered our Cedula numbers into her computer and then told me to go to line 9, and Brendan to line 8. It turned out that these lines corresponded to which part of the alphabet your name belonged, and males and females were separate. In Ecuador, when a woman gets married she doesn’t take her husband’s last name (family name), so husbands and wives would not be in the same line anyway. Brendan’s line was quick and he was done in 10 minutes, but mine was the longest line (most of the others were pretty much done by now) and it took about 30 minutes to get to the start of the line.

I handed over my Cedula to the woman overseeing the voting process, who searched through a little stapled book of tear-out cards with names printed on till she found the one which matched my Cedula (this little card subsequently becomes the official Certificate of Voting). She held onto both of these while giving me a large blank card to slot into the computer inside the classroom polling booth. The computer brought up three screens of candidates one by one, all of which I voted “null” to, (a neutral vote) then I pressed “print” and it did, then took my card and put it in the voting box. I went back to the voting lady, and she found my name on another printout of names, I signed next to mine, she signed my Certificate of Voting card and gave me it and my Cedula back.

On the way out of the school at the gates there were a few stall-holders ready and willing to laminate your new Certificate of Voting for you for the small fee of 50 cents. So ready and willing in fact, that they approach you and practically drag you to their particular stall rather than running the risk that their rivals might get to you first!

So that’s all done. Now we have an extra piece of documentation to not lose!