The President of Colombia’s National Electoral Council has revealed they are investigating nearly a million cases of irregularities in identity documents and voter movements that could be related to electoral fraud.
Joaquin Jose Vives said they had received complaints and reports of irregularities in 900 municipalities. They have so far investigated 161,400 cases and as a result have annulled 56,235 registrations – about 35%.
Vives expressed his “frustration” at the lack of progress made with tackling electoral fraud since the last elections.
He said, “four years later and the situation is exactly the same in every way to the last local elections when we had a million identity cards challenged, 400,000 excluded, we sent copies of every one to the National Prosecutors Office and today not a single person has been convicted and not one case is active.”
He added, “If there are no sanctions, we are wasting our time.”
Colombia will take to the polls on October 30 for nation-wide local elections.
