Protests continue in the Dominican Republic amid e-vote scandal

Hundreds of people flooded the streets of the Dominican Republic again late Wednesday, as anger grows after the Caribbean nation was forced to cancel Sunday’s municipal election amid glitches with its electronic voting system. And police said there were indications of “sabotage” or ballot manipulation that may lead to more arrests.

Waving flags and beating pots and pans in front of the Central Electoral Board, protesters chanted “They must go! They must go!” On Tuesday, a similar demonstration was broken up by tear gas.

So far officials say they are staying despite the simmering outrage and indications that authorities were trying to manipulate the vote.

Roberto Saladín, one of the members of the Central Electoral Board, said neither he nor his colleagues will step down.

“The Dominican people deserve for this entity to organize these elections and not abandon this process in the middle,” he said Wednesday, according to the Listin Diario newspaper. “We are not going to resign, we can’t do it.”

Saladín said that if the people wanted them ousted they should take them to court.

The protests come after the nation of 11 million had to halt municipal elections on Sunday after just three hours amid widespread problems.

Authorities said that about half of polling places using the electronic ballot machines reported problems. While the machines were only being used in the capital and 17 out of 158 municipalities, they were in some of the most populous regions of the country, the Associated Press reported.

Election do-over

As opposition parties complained that some of their candidates were not appearing on the electronic ballots, the government took the unprecedented step of scrapping the vote and calling for a new, manual vote, on March 15.

Late Wednesday, National Police Spokesman Frank Félix Durán Mejía said that police Col. Ramón A. Guzmán Peralta and Manuel Antonio Regalado, a technician for the Claro telecom company, had been detained for trying to derail the vote. However, he suggested they were simply following orders and “collaborating with the principal authors.”

Durán did not name other people, saying the investigation was ongoing.

The problems come as electronic voting systems are coming under scrutiny around the world. Results from this month’s Iowa democratic primary caucus are still unknown after the e-voting system there failed.

The Dominican Republic is asking outside organizations to audit the electronic voting system.

The Organization of American States said it’s considering keeping observers in the Dominican Republic until the new vote is held.

“The mission recognizes that, given the tension in the country, the different actors have expressed their commitment to peace,” the OAS said in a statement. “The mission considers it essential to intensify the dialogue between the political parties and the electoral authority in order to guarantee credible, reliable and transparent elections.”

President Danilo Medina has called for calm and demanded a thorough investigation to make sure the electoral system is reliable and transparent for the new election and the presidential vote in May.

“It’s time to reflect, to fix our errors and bring out the best in ourselves,” he said in a nationally televised address this week. “That’s what the country needs right now. We all must be patriots.”

This story has been updated from the original.

This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 6:18 PM.