Page 83 - Conducting Elections during COVID-19

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 65

Considering that the July 5 general elections followed on the heels of the national government’s June
30 easing of shelter-in-place restrictions, Dominican public health officials were concerned that there
would be a spike in Covid-19 cases on July 14 or July 19—following the respective 14-day incubation
periods. The effectiveness of JCE’s sanitary protocols, and Dominican voters and polling station
officials’ compliance with them became evident with the safe output in terms of successful elections.

The Poll

Dominicans went to the polls on Sunday, July 5, 2020 to vote for the President, Vice President, 32
senators and 190 deputies. The elections had originally been scheduled for May 17 but were postponed
due to COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, if none of the six presidential candidates received at least 50
per cent of the vote, it was planned that a runoff election would be held on July 26.
An important feature of the exercise was that the Dominican voters had to assume their own level
of responsibility in complying with sanitary protocols, which they did for the most part. Adhering
to the social distancing protocol was perhaps the most difficult due to the layout of some polling
stations, where maintaining distance between voters and polling station officials, as well as among
the congregations of political party representatives and voters outside the polling stations, was rather
challenging.

Another significant factor that met consideration was the impact of compliance with sanitary protocols
on the time needed to cast and count each vote, especially as voting hours were restricted to between
7 AM to 5 PM
Voters were enabled to cast their ballots in the Dominican Republic and in 20 countries abroad.

Voter Turnout

The Voter Turnout was 55.29% for the presidential elections and 55.18% for the parliamentary
elections, the lowest-ever turnouts. The pandemic clearly affected the numbers at home and abroad—
with many foreign governments prohibiting expatriate Dominicans from voting to avert the risk of
further Covid-19 spread in their respective nations. Thus, overall voter turnout registered at 55.29
per cent —well below the average of 70.40 per cent during the past three presidential elections
(2008, 2012, and 2016). However, given that the election took place during a pandemic, voter turnout
was higher than anticipated, given the health and safety concerns involved.

Photo credit: Armand Peschard-Sverdrup