Colombia’s Interior Ministry will financially compensate citizens who report vote-buying in local and regional elections that will be held on Sunday, according to President Gustavo Petro.
“I have given the authorization to pay for effective information about vote-buyers,” Petro said on social media platform X.
“Buying votes is a crime,” said the president.
Petro apparently gave his approval to a proposal made by the Interior Ministry’s Democracy Commission, which studied possible government responses to election fraud.
In a press conference held on Monday, Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco presented his proposal to reward citizens who report vote-buying to the authorities.
We want that a citizen, who is offered the purchase of his vote, can immediately go and tell us what is happening and receive an interesting economic compensation.
Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco
Neither the president nor the minister immediately gave specifics on the reward or the method to compensate those reporting electoral crimes.
Velasco also said that the government purchased biometrics systems to combat another common electoral crime, identity theft.
“When a citizen arrives to vote, they will conduct a biometrics test. If the identity card doesn’t coincide with the biometrics test we could be dealing with voter identity theft and we could be dealing with a crime,” said the interior minister.
The anti-fraud measures measures were announced only days before local and regional elections that historically have been among the most vulnerable to fraud.
Electoral authorities allegedly identified more than 650 candidates who were barred from holding public office because of their involvement in organized crime activity in general and government corruption in particular.
