In the Valley they promote campaigns to vote and without fraud - Cali - Colombia

Two weeks before the elections for the Senate and House of Representatives throughout the country, not only the candidates in the regions, especially in Valle del Cauca, seek to captivate the largest number of voters for Sunday, March 13, which will lead them to seats.

Non-governmental organizations, such as the Vallecaucana Action Unit (UAV) and the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), as well as official bodies, including the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the National Registry, have been promoting initiatives for the population to attend to the polls and exercise their right to vote, but to choose in a free, transparent and democratic manner.

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They are campaigns that invite participation, like the one of the UAV with the name ‘Your vote has power’ to elect Congress.

“This time the slogan is ‘Valle Vota Valle’, with which the vote for leaders of the territory is promoted, which increases the representation of the region and leverages resources and promotes projects for the development of the department”, said Daniel López, executive director of the UAV.

But the risks of electoral fraud and the fear among some candidates who have made it visible on their social networks are latent.

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“Voting: an action as simple as it is fundamental to guarantee the well-being of our democracy”, said Alejandro Sánchez, regional coordinator of the MOE.

“But how can we freely vote and elect those who represent us when daily in our country we face the presence of illegal armed groups, violence against leaders, clientelism and other situations that restrict the exercise of our right?” .

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According to the EOM, The Valley has four municipalities at risk of fraud in Senate elections and two more by those seeking the Chamber. There are 14 municipalities with risks due to violence.

The municipality of Valle with factors indicative of electoral fraud and factors of violence is Buga.

For the regional coordinator of the EOM, it is necessary that institutional efforts be concentrated there, in such a way that possible irregularities in these elections can be detected.

However, no fraud is reported in Cali nor in Buenaventura, but there are risks of violence. Cairo has a medium risk in elections for the House due to fraud, while Versailles, for the Senate.

Candidates like Yitcy Becerra, from Centro Esperanza, who goes after the Chamber, asks to avoid buying votes. “Electoral fraud is a threat to democracy.”

Míldred Arias is also seeking a seat in the Chamber and said that with more education there is less corruption.

The municipalities with risks due to violence, with a high and extreme risk index, are Cali, Bolívar and Buenaventura.

In this list of high risks, according to the EOM, there are also Buga, Florida, Jamundí and Tuluá.

Andalusia, Bugalagrande, Candelaria, Dagua, El Dovio, Seville and Yumbo with medium risks due to violence in elections.

Beware of electoral crimes

In the National Electoral Council (CNE) they point out that the constraint to the voter is a criminal offense.

Voter fraud, fraudulent voting and vote trafficking are also criminal offenses.

In the CNE and in the Registry they promote the campaign to denounce these facts.

CALI

Judge Rules Trump, Eldest Children Must Testify in Fraud Case

washington — 

A New York State Supreme Court judge on Thursday ruled that former President Donald Trump and his two oldest children will have to submit to questioning by the state’s attorney general in a civil investigation into potential fraud at the Trump Organization.

Attorneys representing Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and his daughter Ivanka Trump had moved to have subpoenas for their testimony canceled. They contended that it was improper for New York Attorney General Letitia James to be pursuing both a civil and a criminal investigation at the same time. James is cooperating in a criminal case that was brought by the district attorney of Manhattan.

Judge Arthur Engoron said that the Trumps’ legal argument “completely misses the mark” and that the attorney general was within her rights to demand testimony from Trump and his children.

However, while the name of the court on which Engoron sits, the Supreme Court of the state of New York, seems to suggest the ruling’s finality, the outcome is not so certain. The state of New York has two levels of judicial review that are above the Supreme Court — first the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, and finally the Court of Appeals.

This means that the Trumps have the right to appeal Engoron’s ruling, something their attorneys signaled Thursday that they planned to do.

FILE – Michael Cohen, a former attorney to President Donald Trump is seen outside his apartment building, in New York, May 6, 2019.

Case background

The case James is pursuing against Trump has its roots in revelations dating to the closing days of the Trump presidency, when Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress that he was aware of financial irregularities in the Trump Organization’s bookkeeping.

Specifically, Cohen alleged that Trump and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, systematically under-reported the value of the company’s assets when disclosing them for tax purposes, in order to minimize the firm’s tax liability. Additionally, Cohen said, they would overstate the value of the same assets when pledging them as collateral for bank loans and other financial transactions.

Last month, James submitted a filing to the court listing multiple instances in which the Trump Organization had provided information to different parties in different transactions that was contradicted elsewhere.

In the same filing, James referred to testimony from Weisselberg indicating that Trump kept paper records of his financial transactions, but despite requests from her office, none of those records had been disclosed to investigators.

A raucous hearing

The judge’s ruling on Thursday followed a hearing Wednesday in which the attorney representing Donald Trump, Alina Habba, complained that the investigation was political in nature and ought to be shut down.

More than once, Habba had to be warned to stop interrupting Engoron when he was speaking, and she was also criticized for directly addressing Kevin Wallace, an attorney working for James’ office, a breach of courtroom protocol.

“I want to know, Mr. Wallace, Ms. James, are you going to go after Hillary Clinton for what she’s doing to my client?” Habba demanded at one point. “That she spied at Trump Tower in your state? Are you going to look into her business dealings?”

Habba was referring to a debunked claim that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had somehow conspired to spy on Trump while he was president.

FILE – New York Attorney General Letitia James acknowledges questions from journalists at a news conference, in New York, May 21, 2021.

Unsparing ruling

The claims from Trump’s attorney that James’ investigation has a political taint are based pledges she made as a candidate running for attorney general. James regularly promised to investigate Trump’s business dealings.

In his ruling, Engoron acknowledged that fact, but said that in his view, the significant evidence suggesting potential wrongdoing by the Trump Organization meant that failing to mount an investigation “would have been a blatant dereliction of duty” on James’ part.

“Indeed, the impetus for the investigation was not personal animus, not racial or ethnic or other discrimination, not campaign promises, but was sworn congressional testimony by former Trump associate Michael Cohen that respondents were ‘cooking the books’” he wrote.

Engoron also dismissed the claim by attorneys representing the Trumps that, by forcing them to testify in a civil case, the attorney general would be collecting statements that could be used against them in the criminal probe.

Engoron noted that the Trumps would retain their “absolute right” under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to refuse to answer any questions that they feel might incriminate them. He reminded them that a third Trump child, Eric Trump, had invoked his right more than 500 times in testimony provided in the same case.

Trump, James respond

After the ruling was issued Thursday, Trump issued a rambling statement that repeated the claim that Clinton had spied on him while he was in the White House, attacked James for comments she made about him during her run for office, and insisted there was no basis for either her civil case or the criminal case being pursued by the Manhattan district attorney.

“It is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in history—and remember, I can’t get a fair hearing in New York because of the hatred of me by Judges and the judiciary. It is not possible!” Trump wrote.

“Today, justice prevailed,” James said in a statement released by her office.

It continued, “No one will be permitted to stand in the way of the pursuit of justice, no matter how powerful they are. No one is above the law.”

Magdalena: measures of the Registry against electoral fraud - Other Cities - Colombia

the national registrar Alexander Vega He promised to pay special attention to the Magdalena, within the framework of the next electoral debate to be held on March 13.

(Also read: They denounce that a fraud in the elections is being hatched in Magdalena)

The official said that there will be strict surveillance measures to avoid any intention of fraud that is intended to be forged to obtain a place in the Congress of the Republic.

The most important thing is that we are going to have guarantees in the audit and control over the municipalities

The announcement was made after receiving in his office a series of complaints by spokesmen for the Citizen Force movement.

In that sense, he indicated that there will be no homogeneity of the voting jurors at the tables, that is, the presence of people fulfilling this task who are related to the same political movement will not be allowed at a table.

Vega also assured that he will implement a biometric system at high-risk tables in Magdalena and in the country.

Likewise, he said that he will verify if the delegates who were in 2018 made any type of irregularity.

“But the most important thing is that we are going to have guarantees in the audit and control over the municipalities so that all the tables have juries and the witnesses are previously accredited,” Vegal specified.

Citizen Force complaints

The national spokesperson for the Citizen Force and candidate for the Senate, Raphael Martinezpresented in a meeting with the registrar a series of evidence on a possible electoral fraud that would have been committed in the 2018 elections in Magdalena, by capturing entire voting positions in favor of a candidate.

“We are somewhat reassured by the centralization of neuralgic issues, such as the juror draw, the guarantee for our witnesses and the presence of our jurors at all the tables, the guarantee committees that are going to be made according to the needs and the biometric points” , he indicated.

Martínez insisted that “we don’t want them to give us anything, but we don’t want them to take anything away either.”

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Although it is true that the State must reach these remote sectors, which is part of the peace agreement, it must also offer democratic guarantees

Martínez confirmed to Vega that he filed a criminal complaint for the evidenced irregularities, while alerting public opinion that the same mechanism would be preparing for a major fraud in the department in the next elections.

For his part, candidate Hollman Morris recalled that, through his reporting for the past year, he has been denouncing the reappearance of paramilitarismespecially on the Pacific coast, Urabá and the Caribbean, a phenomenon that could be affecting voting in remote rural municipalities of Colombia, where the Registrar announces that there will be 13,000 new polling stations.

“Although it is true that the State must reach these remote sectors, which is part of the peace agreement, it must also offer democratic guarantees,” said candidate Morris.

Roger Urieles
For THE WEATHER Santa Marta
@rogeruv

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Magdalena: Citizen Force denounces possible electoral fraud - Other Cities - Colombia

The former mayor of Santa Marta and candidate for the Senate for the Citizen Force movementRafael Martínez, denounced that there is provision this year for several candidates to use “irregular mechanisms” in order to be elected.

(Also read: Governor of Magdalena denies support for candidates for the Chamber and Senate)

Martínez recalled that, in 2018, in the municipalities of Magdalena there was fraud in the elections to Congress and that this could be repeated on election day in 2022.

The instruction given to the regional delegates of the Registry is to guarantee a vote for certain electoral bosses by region

He considered having some “convincing evidence” with which he wants to demonstrate that, presumably, from the National Registry of Civil Status a fraud was orchestrated in the last legislative elections.

The Citizen Force candidate said that this situation became known through complaints received by part of the internal staff of the Registry.

“The instruction given to the regional delegates of the Registry is to guarantee a vote for certain electoral bosses by region, in the case of Magdalena it is known that for the Senate the favored one is Fabián Castillo”, denounced the spokesperson for Fuerza Ciudadana.

As detailed, the fraud consists of securing complete electoral posts, standardizing the vote and guaranteeing enough votes to exceed the threshold in the Chamber, exactly as was done in 2018, as he maintained, especially in the third, fourth and fifth category municipalities.

For example, Martínez stated that “in 2018 and after making a comparison between the formats: E-10, E-11, E-14- and E-24, it can be shown that the current House Representatives for Magdalena: Franklin Lozano, from Citizen Option; Kelyn González, from the Liberal party; Carlos Mario Farelo from Cambio Radical; and to a lesser extent Hernando Guida, from the U; the elections to Congress were stolen in Magdalena”.

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Request a change of delegate

They stole the election and got their credentials with outright fraud

While, for the Senate issue, the beneficiaries of the fraud, according to his version, were Fabián Castillo and the confessed Eduardo Thumb.

“The elections were stolen and they achieved their credentials with blatant fraud,” warned Rafa Martínez.

The Citizen Force movement, upon receiving this complaint and analyzing the evidence and verifying the information, filed a criminal complaint against all the jurors and delegates of the Registry and the municipalities where these electoral crimes occurred.

“The foregoing is easily demonstrated by finding atypical tables and positions where the combined vote of these candidates and the party far exceeds 30 percent of it,” explained Rafael Martínez.

The Citizen Force requested the National Registrar, the MOE, and all non-governmental organizations to immediate change of delegate Regional Office of the Registrar and the municipal delegates in Magdalena.

“We ask for the supervision of the elections on March 13 and that special attention be paid to the Magdalena case, the alarms be set off to prevent the elections from being stolen again in the same way and replicate this model of electoral crime in the rest. of the country”, emphasized Rafael Martínez.

Roger Urieles
For THE WEATHER Santa Marta
@rogeruv

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Threats of fraud and electoral violence in Montes de María denounces the MOE - Other Cities - Colombia

Threats and constraint of the Gulf Clan, as well as manipulation of corrupt to the communities of Los Montes de Marìa (between the departments of Bolìvar and Sucre) are the risks that the Electoral Observation Mission, MOE, in this region of the Colombian Caribbean.

“The situation of constituency number 8 of Montes de María for these elections is really very complex. According to our analysis, there is a risk consolidated by factors of electoral fraud and violence. There are threats in four municipalities and three of them are at extreme risk,” says Rafael Martín Castillo Torres, delegate of the Electoral Observation Mission, MOE, for the region.

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Violent offer two million pesos for ‘the combo’ of the three votes in the upcoming elections

The concentration of municipalities at risk for fraud and violence is worrying in Montes de María with a view to the next elections:

Among the municipalities in the magnifying glass of the MOE are Sheep, San Onofre, Colosó and Chalán (in Sucre) and Carmen de Bolivar (in Bolivar).

“The indicator of electoral fraud today becomes alarming and is linked to acts of violence. Seven of the municipalities of the Montes de las María constituency are at extreme risk”, adds the EOM delegate for this region of the Colombian Caribbean.

(In context: Elections 2022: early warnings from the Ombudsman on Montes de María)

Sources consulted by EL TIEMPO in the municipality of Ovejas give an account of the way in which the violent allies with corrupt clans are offering two million pesos for ‘the combo’ of the three votes in the elections to Senate and Presidency of the Republic.

“The concentration of municipalities at risk for fraud and violence is worrying in Montes de María with a view to the next elections: regarding the factors of violence, we have a concentrated presence of the Gulf Clan in the municipalities of Bolívar and Sucre, and disputes with local gangs,” says the MOE observer.

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