The electoral process this Sunday, in which the sectional authorities will be elected, the members of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS) and eight questions from the referendum must be answered, will be monitored by more than 2,000 people including national observers and international.
Of this group of people, 240 correspond to observers from international organizations, such as the Organization of American States (OAS).Inter-American Union of Electoral Bodies (Uniore), Electoral Transparency, Association of Electoral Magistrates of the Americas (AMEA), Andean Parliament, Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America (Ceela) and the World Association of Electoral Bodies (A-WEB).
CNE carried out the second training day for national electoral observers of the February 5 elections
At the level of national observers, 1,837 people registered to accompany the process, who are regularly experts in human rights and electoral processes; Its mission is to accompany and monitor that the day is transparent, adequate and clean.
On the other hand, political delegates have another figure different from electoral observation. The Code of Democracy speaks of the fact that the delegates of political organizations have a role before the boards that receive the vote, because they are representatives with a political voice and will be on the boards; In addition, they have access to a copy of the tally sheet.
Electoral observers have no voice in the scrutiny: they are only there to observe and take note; and, in the event of a conflict, they report it in the electoral observation reports.
Like political organizations, observers have access to information on the location of electoral precincts, processing centers to formulate observation routes; In addition, they can access the electoral register and the complete electoral registry approved by the CNE for the elections. On this they also carry out an analysis and issue a report.
Gabriela Ortiz, Director of International Relations of the National Electoral Council, is in charge of coordinating international observation. He assures that for this process the budget destined to the observation was austere: it does not exceed $500,000, and that it was basically destined to mobilization, materials, technological tools and maintenance of the missions that will participate in the journey.
National observers will be present in 22 of the 24 provinces. In the two provinces where national observations were not accredited, there will be international observation.
Regarding voting abroad, the CNE accredited five Ecuadorian observers who will be in the cities of San Sebastián, Madrid, Milan and Ipiales, in Colombia.
In the case of international observation, Ortiz comments, the OAS will have independent missions and they will be deployed to the six critical provinces of the country. The other international missions will be deployed to ten provinces, and in the end they will be the 18 largest cities in the country where there will be the presence of electoral observation. Only in Quito there will be eight observation routes during the day.
As it is an independent mission, the OAS does not inform about the sites of its deployment, but has indicated that they will be in six provinces: Guayas, Pichincha, Manabí, Esmeraldas, El Oro and Cotopaxi. The categorization of critical provinces is the result of the previous monitoring of the missions and also responds to criteria issued by political analysts and the dissemination of information in the press regarding the political situation, citizen security and the importance it has within a process electoral.
Security
Regarding security actions in the electoral process, Gabriela Ortiz comments that Esmeraldas is one of the critical areas and that it is taken into account by electoral observation missions; but, for security reasons, the day of their tours or the venues where they will be this Sunday will not be reported.
The routes of the observation tours are defined by each group of observers. After concluding their mission, they will present a preliminary report the day after the electoral process, that is, on Monday, February 6.
After noon this Sunday, February 5, a first light evaluation of the observers is expected regarding the development of electoral day, since by regulations they have limits within their expressions about what they observed until they deliver their preliminary report, which they deliver until three days after the process.
Adjustments to the 2023 process
After the 2021 electoral process, the National Electoral Council welcomed some suggestions from international electoral observation. Gabriela Ortiz points out that since the general elections ended, three clear lines of cooperation have been identified: the fight against political violence based on gender issues; the implementation of electronic electoral systems and the implementation of biometrics for post-election processes, such as control issues; and training with the members of the boards receiving the vote and coordinators of the electoral precincts.
For this year, the audit of political organizations was strengthened, as was the development of systems, such as the telematic vote that will be implemented abroad. For telematic voting there will be a mission of four technical experts who will monitor it from the CNE systems room and from the countries where the telematic voting will take place. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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