Quintanilla family on the way to the polling place. Photo: Andrés Quintanilla for © WEBER Packaging GmbH, 2019
My travel report
6. Teil – Election Day
On 3 February 2019 the election of the president took place in El Salvador. For weeks, each party tried to convince the voters of their candidate by means of posters, television appearances and advertising campaigns. Since Andrés Quintanillas father is not only a lawyer but also a former vice president of the country, the election preparations were of course followed closely. In this way, we too quickly got a picture of the candidates and their election promises.
In the colors of the party
On election Sunday we went to the polling station together. Here it is customary to dress in the colors of the party logo or to draw attention to it through accessories. This way you can quickly see who votes for which party and many Salvadorans are fully behind their party. In order to be allowed to vote, one has to be 18 years old and present one's identity card. Then the fingerprint is taken to prevent voters from voting in two polling stations. The ballot papers themselves are very simple and contain only the logos of the parties. Andrés explains to us that many people can neither read nor write and therefore only the logos are shown, which are then ticked off.
The polling stations were open until 5 pm and then the counting started. Every single ballot paper is presented by an election worker in front of a camera and he has to recite the name of the party out loud. There is a representative from each party who receives all the ballot papers from his party and has to count them.
Read here in the WEBER Nachrichtenblog the 7th part!