Inhabitants of the municipality of La Jagua del Pilar, La Guajira, issue an alert to the electoral authorities about the alleged transhumance in this town, where the process of registration of identity cards began, according to the schedule of the National Registry of Civil Status.
In this regard, the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) alerted the National Electoral Council about the phenomenon of atypical registrations of identity cards, specifically in 94 municipalities of the country, among which there is a group of eight with a rate 16 times higher than the national one. .
With regard to La Jagua del Pilar, the MOE places it in second place of the eight territories where this irregularity is occurring. Between October 29, 2022 and January 29, 2023, 212 identity cards were registered, with the projected adult population, according to DANE, being 2,595 citizens, which represents 81.70% of the population.
“The CNE will carry out the necessary actions to guarantee that the particular conditions of the territories with high rates of registration of identity cards are not used for electoral fraud,” the agency reported on its official Twitter account.
Transhumance is the action of registering the identity card to vote in a place other than the one in which one resides, a situation that is being presented in a voluminous and shameless way, as denounced by a community leader of the jurisdiction.
He denounces that there are between 2,500 and 3,000 people who have no relationship or family connection in the municipality of La Jagua del Pilar. “These people only go on election day, they have voted for more than 10 years and the electoral authorities do not go into depth and although the complaint is filed, the criteria used by the electoral authority is to respect the last place where they voted,” he denounced.
There is also the modality of recruiting young people in the neighboring municipalities so that they obtain the identity card for the first time in the territory, which allows them to be part of the electoral census, even if they are not residents of the jurisdiction.
Another neighbor of the municipality announced that, given this irregular situation, the ‘zero census’ is being promoted, to change the hegemony of two mayoral candidates, who have been taking turns in command for 16 years.
La Jagua del Ibirico only has 4,000 inhabitants, and the vice in electoral season is to bulk up the electoral roll for private purposes. “We ask that the authorities take action on the matter, we must defeat the widespread vote buying, an evil that is ending the independence of this town when it comes to voting,” said Alirio Contreras, a resident of the municipality.
He denounces that against the politicians who are in charge of this ‘trap’, there are several complaints, but unfortunately there are no actions on the part of the electoral body, he said.