First day of voting concludes in Chile; 23,000 soldiers guard ballot boxes overnight

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – More than three million Chileans cast their vote this Saturday on the first day of the historic constituent elections. The ballot boxes were sealed and transferred to locked rooms where they will spend the night.

The 2,731 polling places will reopen their doors on Sunday at 8 AM local time, as Chile is holding its elections over a two-day period to avoid crowds.

“The room will be guarded by Army personnel, and also, with previous accreditation, there are proxies of the different parties and independent candidacies that will be able to be there during the night, observing that the process is transparent and that nobody has contact with the ballot boxes,, explained this week the Minister of the Interior, Rodrigo Delgado.

An assistant to the delegate of the electoral board and an official of the Electoral Service (Servel) will also remain at the polling place, who will report any incident.

This is the most important election in Chile’s recent history, in which 15 million Chileans can vote to elect the 155 citizens who will draft a new Constitution to replace the current one, in force since the military dictatorship.

The convention will have 17 seats reserved for indigenous peoples. The convention will also have gender parity, something unprecedented in the world, that will make Chile, in a few months, the first country to have a Magna Carta written in equal parts by men and women.

It will also be the first time in its 200 years of independence that Chile will have a Fundamental Law drafted by elected citizens. The three texts it has had so far (1833, 1925, and 1980) were written by constituents not elected by popular vote.

“Undoubtedly, we are in front of the most important historical process in the last 40 years, which will mark the future for the next 40 years, ” said the Chamber of Deputies president, Diego Paulsen, after voting in the south of the country.

PARTICIPATION OF 20 % ON SATURDAY

Election monitor Servel advised that this Saturday, during the first day of voting, 3,052,413 people voted, which represents 20.4 % of the electoral roll. In the Santiago Metropolitan Region, where 8 of the country’s 19 million inhabitants live, participation was 21.5 %, while in the populous coastal region of Valparaíso, it was 21.7 %.

“The electoral process has developed successfully today, and almost all the ballot boxes and electoral materials are under the custody of the Armed Forces and Carabineros, and with citizen control of the proxies”, said Tagle.

Some polling places, especially in Santiago, could not close at 6 PM as scheduled, because many people were standing in line, and the law prevents denying them the vote.

Simultaneously with the constituent elections, Chilean voters will also elect 354 mayors, 2,252 council members, and 16 regional governors.