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OAS Launches Initiative on Identifying and Updating Guatemala’s Electoral Roll ahead of 2015 Elections

  September 16, 2014

The Organization of American States (OAS) began the implementation in Guatemala of the project on Strengthening the Citizen Identification Systems of the National Registry of Persons (RENAP) and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, by its Spanish acronym) ahead of the general elections that will take place in 2015 in the Central American country.

The project aims to advance the verification and purging of voter registry information to enable all Guatemalan citizens to exercise their right to vote in 2015. To this end, an evaluation of the implementation of the recommendations the OAS made to the TSE and the RENAP in 2010 will be conducted. At the same time, the organization will support the cross-checking and exchange of information from both institutions’ databases in order to make practical recommendations for correcting discrepancies that may be identified.

The project of the OAS Secretariat for Political Affairs is being implemented jointly by the OAS Universal Civil Identity Program of the Americas (PUICA) of the Department for Effective Public Management and the Technical Cooperation Section of the Department for Electoral Cooperation and Observation. The initiative was presented last week in Guatemala City by the OAS Representative in that country, Milagro Martínez.

Currently, the voter registry in Guatemala includes 7.4 million citizens, of which 6.2 million are updated with the Personal Identification Document. The 2015 presidential elections will be the first time that all citizens will have to vote using only their Personal Identity Document (DPI, by its Spanish acronym). Consequently, the RENAP and the TSE seek to ensure that all eligible voters have their DPI and that their information is updated on the electoral roll.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-375/14