Election Day in El Salvador: Part 1

On March 9, 2014, I served as an international election observer through FECLAI - Foro Ecumenico Consejo Latina Americana de Iglesias (Ecumenical Forum of Churches of Latin America).  I was part of a team of about 70 Salvadoran and international observers who were invited by the forum of churches to observe the second round of the election for the office of president of El Salvador.  As of this moment, the preliminary results indicate that the FMLN candidate, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, has been elected as president.  The election results are disputed by the ARENA candidate and party.

Our team of four observers, made up of two persons from El Salvador and two from the United States, observed the voting process in three locations.  We will compile a detailed election report over the next 24 hours which will be submitted to FECLAI.  The FECLAI report is then shared with the Supreme Election Tribunal in an effort to improve the electoral process.  It is also shared with the citizens of El Salvador through the press.

As observers, we had the opportunity to take photographs of the process and of the general activities at the voting locations.  I will be posting photos from each of the locations. These photos were taken in the southern part of the country in a rural area where we observed the last 3 hours of voting and the closing and counting process...
This little girl, age 8, had learned about the election process from her father.
She was very well-spoken about the importance of voting!

During the counting process - unused ballots are counted and stamped.
The corner pieces from the cast ballots are also counted.

Each ballot is held up for scrutiny, and then given to the corresponding
party Vigilante who then counts the ballots for his/her party.

Voting

Voting

Voting

Resting as the day comes to an end

Tallying the number of voters

This little girl broke my heart...

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