Colombia’s Registry’s Office wants authorities to investigate irregularities in the registration of citizens in the north of the country, claiming there may be attempts at fraud in the 2010 elections.
The Registry found a large number of suspicious registrations in the Caribbean coast region in the last two weeks of October. Of the 21,000 requests for a cedula, an identity document needed to vote, in nearly half of the cases the fingerprints did not match fingerprints connected to previous cedulas of the same number and were untraceable in the Registry’s database.
In Norte de Santander, on the border with Venezuela, a sample of recent registered voters showed that 18 of 20 registers were not accompanied by the necessary papers and ink was used that was different than that used by the Registry.
Register General Carlos Ariel Sanchez now wants to the Prosecutor General to criminally investigate these apparents attempts to election fraud.
Election fraud at the Senate election in 2006 led to the nullification of votes and the suspension of lawmakers no less than three years after the elections were held. The Registry now hopes to prevent this by closing the polling stations where pre-election fraud is established.