MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuador's referendum goes on uneventfully

The results will be released as soon as vote counting is done, Atamaint said

Ecuador's National Electoral Council (CNE) announced Sunday that turnout for the national referendum called by President Guillermo Lasso seeking endorsement after 18 months in office had reached 80.74 %. Ecuadorians were also voting to elect the members of the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS), in addition to municipal authorities.

“The historical percentage of citizen participation is maintained as in previous electoral processes. This is how the counting process began in the Voting Boards, where the hands of the Ecuadorian citizens themselves, mostly university students, will count the votes cast by all,” CNE President Diana Atamaint said.

Atamaint also explained that given the number of ballots and to speed up the counting process, the counting will be carried out in two groups: “In the first group the ballots to be counted are for the mayoral and prefect dignities, in the second group the ones to be counted are those for the referendum and then for the authorities of the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control,” she said.

The CNE issued a statement saying that the official results “will be proclaimed when the scrutiny at the Voting Boards has concluded.” Over 13 million Ecuadorians participated in the elections. They had to vote for 23 provincial prefects (governors), 221 mayors, 864 urban councilors, 443 rural councilors, 4,109 members of parish councils, and 7 councilors of the CPCCS.

They also had to answer the eight questions of the referendum promoted by Lasso. (read also: https://en.mercopress.com/2023/02/05/ecuador-s-president-takes-a-gamble-with-a-multi-item-referendum )

“The processing of results is progressing gradually. The processing and dissemination of results will not stop until 100 percent of the valid tally sheets are obtained,” Atamaint said later in a TV interview. She added that after the closing of the polls at 17:00 local time (22:00 GMT) after 10 hours of voting, the scrutiny process began and the first partial results of the elected dignitaries began to be disseminated through the CNE's web portal.

“Rest assured that the National Electoral Council will respect each of the votes expressed by Ecuadorians at the polls. Therefore, we invite citizens to follow the transmission and processing of results through our official channels,” she said.

Lasso's initiative was said to have broad support, according to a survey among 8,468 people by pollsters Cedatos during the previous days. The study was said to have a margin of error of 2.8%. It found that Lasso's proposals had between 59.1% and 74.4% endorsements.