By Helen Montoya/Center for the Study of Democracy (Cespad)
With less than 40 days to go before the general elections, the purge of the electoral roll and the delivery and definition of whether Hondurans will vote with one or both identification documents continue to generate uncertainty because these two situations, in past electoral processes, have contributed to generating corruption and a lack of transparency in the final results of the vote.
Both aspects are crucial and cause great concern to citizens, since they are a kind of “Achilles heel” in the electoral processes in Honduras.
Delays with the DNI
The process of enlisting Hondurans and the delivery of the new National Identification Document (DNI) have had some delays in the fulfillment planned in the electoral calendar, due to the obstacles generated by the National Congress with the aim, say some people consulted, of boycotting the elections of November 28, 2021.
According to the National Registry of Persons (RNP), more than 5.3 millions of Hondurans enlisted before September 23. That number represents 99% of the total number of enlistments throughout the country, according to the RNP, and of these people 2,817,697 are women and 2,581,145 are men.
Official data show that more than 100,000 have been delivered. 4 million of the new DNImissing the delivery of a few 900,000 new identities, a figure confirmed by the RNP on October 16. However, of that number they will have to be debugged from the census some sectors that cannot exercise the right to vote: police, military and those deprived of liberty.
The presence of deceased persons and migrants in the national electoral census has traditionally fueled suspicions about the risk of voter fraud, as happened in the 2017 elections. In those elections, the RNP estimates that up to 30% of the total census had these problems. But, for the 2021 elections, this entity indicated that there are around almost 700,000 fewer voters, after updating the data and leaving out deceased persons and migrants.
Current ID card validity extended: Is it possible to vote with two identities?
But in this scenario, the number of new identification documents that have yet to be delivered is a number viewed with suspicion and nervousness due to the little time left before the general elections are held.
The extension of the validity of the current identity, until 15 November, is causing a lot of concern because it is considering the possibility of voting with two identification documents on November 28.
The extension The use of the current ID will be for commercial transactions and not for voting in the elections, said Tomás Zambrano, secretary of the CN, to the media, so that the idea that voting with two identities will not be possible is maintained, at least for now. Likewise, the CN decided to extend the validity of the current identity card for Hondurans abroad for 180 days.
But other political voices have denounced that, less than a month before the elections, the new extension of the use of the current identity document, which extends until 13 days before the vote, generates uncertainty because there is a preconceived plan by the governing party for voting with identity documents, on November 28.
Sociologist Eugenio Sosa, in a recent analysis for CESPAD, predicts that it is likely that the National Congress, in its anti-election crusade, will reach “approve that Hondurans can vote with either of the two identification documents, which will reload the problem of the transparency of the electoral process and its results”.
Despite the above, the president of the CNE, Kelvin Aguirre, has expressed in the media that “There can't be two ID cards; we reject that. You have to go to the election process with only one document.”.
In this same sense, the member of the CNE Advisory Committee, Carlos Ortiz, indicated that “The person who was not registered will not appear in the new National Electoral Census and consequently will not vote.”, as they do not have the new DNI, so they will not have that opportunity to vote with the current identification
Vaticanio
Luis Redondo, a member of the Innovation and Unity Party-Social Democrat Party (PINU-SD), maintains that the electoral roll purge process is still incomplete and that this situation could lead to situations or characteristics similar to those that occurred in the primary elections, held in March 2021.
But the congressman goes further and predicts that what happened in the primary elections is planned for the general elections because he is convinced that there is no purge of the electoral roll and the total delivery of ID cards is not complete.There were Hondurans who voted in this year's primaries with a copy of the application for the new DNI, with electricity bills, and, in addition, at tables that did not correspond to them.«.
For this congressman, it is evident that the National Party has put obstacles in the way of the electoral process through delays in the approval of the new Electoral Law, the disbursement of the budget to the National Electoral Council (CNE) and RNP; the budgetary control of these entities and even the failure to approve the Electoral Justice Law. But he also claims that other political parties have formed a “co-government” and have helped make the electoral panorama dubious and not credible.
He puts another problem on the table for discussion that, he says, could tarnish the result of the elections: the voting of young people who will vote for the first time. “They are not registered, so they do not have the Voting Boards assigned to them.” This indicates, he notes, that the census purge is incomplete and there is no predictability of the registration data due to the fact that both “the RNP and the CNE are led by the three political parties…", referring to the National Party, Liberal Party and Liberty and Refoundation (Libre).
The RNP is not working at its maximum capacity and, according to Redondo, it has received complaints indicating that the customer service offices close at 12 noon, and other cases in which people cannot find their identification in the indicated places.
Everything is going well!
Redondo's statements contrast with the version of Rolando Kattan, Commissioner of the (RNP), who assured in an interview with CESPAD that the 2021 elections will not contain the same errors as in 2017.
“It is important that they trust the electoral process,” said the commissioner, adding that there are already “99% Hondurans who have registered” and that they will have the new DNI. In addition, he added that they do not have “for certain” the total number of people in the territory, that is, how many inhabitants Honduras has. But he insists that they have met the objectives despite the problems generated by the pandemic, hurricanes Eta and Iota, and the delay in the delivery of the budget for the optimal development of the electoral process.
He also invited all Hondurans to obtain an ID card, since one day after the legislative decree expires, "the previous identification will no longer be valid and Hondurans will not be able to use it for any banking transaction or administrative procedures."
Some costs related to the DNI
Through the so-called Identifícate project, the RNP would be working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with loans from the CABEI and national funds in the process of providing the new identification document to 5.5 million Hondurans who are of voting age during the elections in November of this year.
The total cost of this process is 63 million dollars, plus 9 million dollars due to the time lag in the enrollment and delivery of the DNI. Meanwhile, the cost of each identity card is $ 1.88 (around 47 lempiras).
Other costs, always in the enrollment process, include, according to Kattan, the mobilization of 400 people, 300 vehicles, 1,500 kits. Also, the expenses for the issue of Covid-19 and biosecurity protocols, masks, alcohol, thermometers, chlorine and others for the enrollment process.
The RNP commissioner, Roberto Breve, indicated that at least 300 thousand identification cards are pending, which will come to the country in two batches from the factory in Poland in the month of October.
Inconsistencies
According to the consulted commissioner, up to now the electoral census has been purged in 99%. Of that percentage, the same RNP reported that they learned of 400,000 inconsistencies related to the validation of data of the Hondurans enrolled. Likewise, they verified more than 80 thousand cases of errors in the identity cards, with the purpose of validating data to be able to correctly print the new DNI.
These inconsistencies have been another delay in meeting the stipulated date for the full delivery of the 5.3 million ID cards.
UNDP representative Richard Barathe ruled out that the new identification document would create any kind of flaw in the electoral process because he claims that it is an “ultra-secure” identity because the registry database created is of the highest quality.
"Those who did not show up did not register, and those who did not register do not have an ID. The dead who did not register and the foreigners who did not register are not in that registry database, therefore, they will not come to the voting centers to put their fingerprints," he said, adding that it is a step forward to achieve clean and transparent elections.
Foreign voting
Another issue that represents a problem is the lack of delivery of DNI to the Honduran migrant community residing in the United States, Canada and Central America. According to the RNP, the number of Hondurans living abroad who would be participating with their votes in the elections has tripled. The authorities affirm that 16,000 citizens who live outside the country have enrolled.
However, it is estimated that there are at least one million Hondurans living in other countries who, according to migrant community leaders, are becoming “doubly undocumented due to the government’s lack of action,” since without an ID card they will not be able to vote or carry out personal procedures or errands.
According to the RNP Commissioner, Oscar Rivera, the delay in the delivery of the new DNI to Hondurans abroad is the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since they have consulted them on the subject, through “six notes” and, however, have not received a response. Rivera maintains that “the identities of the Hondurans who enrolled are already printed, but there is no joint work schedule to send them through the consulates.”
The fraud of 2017
From the CNE, Rixi Moncada, in her capacity as counselor, says that there is significant progress towards the fulfillment of a clean and satisfactory electoral process, with the purging of deceased persons and citizens who have migrated. "In 2017, a verbal purge was carried out, a legal requirement. Now in 2021, it was a registration of citizens in the field, a physical verification that provides greater security," she affirms, when consulted by CESPAD.
Various forms of fraud were reported, Moncada explains, including fraud in the national electoral census, the buying and selling of votes, rigged special vote counts, the transmission of preliminary results and more than 600 votes lost.
The councilor is confident that, for the 2021 general elections, the electoral base will not have deceased or migrants, since the identification process was done in the field, and with that base the definitive census will be prepared, after reviewing, evaluating and qualifying the records that the RNP will send to the CNE.
"The process of issuing the DNI by the RNP has enough time for mass delivery and in this way it will achieve the result that would mean that all Hondurans have their identification "freely to exercise their right to vote," he commented optimistically.
However, he says that if all the cards are not delivered, the situation will become a problem that involves violating the right of citizens to carry their identification document, the only valid one for voting. Despite the successes and setbacks, Moncada agrees that the general elections should not be held with two identities, for “the security and fairness of the process.”
Electoral reforms
Due to the serious allegations and irregularities with which the 2017 elections were carried out, organized civil society, the political opposition, some international organizations and other countries called for an urgent change in the electoral legislation in its entirety. Thus, reforms and proposals for improvement began to be heard and known, with the aim of not repeating the errors of that year.
One of the main reforms requested at that time was precisely the way to purify the national electoral census, and even the need to issue a new identity card as a way of purifying the electoral roll and having more precise data on the true number of inhabitants in the territory.
Thus, with just a few weeks to go before the November 28 elections, it is essential to complete the delivery of identity documents to those registered and ensure that Hondurans will attend the general elections with a clean register, in order to greatly eliminate the possibility of another possible electoral fraud.
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