Since very early in the morning, all of Venezuela has taken to the streets to elect the next president of the country. From one of the polling stations, our special envoy Brian Mier updates us. teleSUR
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, you're watching Terrestrial English, I'm Luis Alberto Matos, and these are the
00:08headlines at this hour.
00:10Since the very early hours of the morning, the Venezuelan people is going to the polls
00:14to elect their president in a very important presidential election being held all over
00:18the national territory where over 21 million Venezuelans are called to participate.
00:23Let's go now live to Venezuela with our special envoy, Brian Mears, for all the updates of
00:28this day.
00:29So, Brian, what can you tell us at these very hours in the morning of how the elections
00:33is unfolding?
00:35Well, good morning from the Fermin Toro Voting Center.
00:43It's a voting center located very close to the Miraflores Palace, so there's a high level
00:48of military people who are just here voting.
00:52And I want to just walk you through the process here of how it happens.
00:55People come in and they see their, they see these lists of numbers on the walls and they
01:02correspond to the last two digits of their ID card.
01:06And so by looking at these lists, then they know what table they have to go to.
01:10And I'll walk you into the voting center now just so you can see how it's working.
01:14There's some people standing at the door from the Plata Republica, who are the people overseeing
01:20the security of the elections.
01:22And they make sure that the line doesn't get too big inside of the voting center.
01:27Coming in here, you have two volunteers giving out information, and you have some military
01:34personnel standing around here, because this guy we're walking by, he's like the commander
01:39of the troops who are coming in and voting this morning here.
01:42So it's a lot of palace guards and things like that.
01:46So corresponding with your ID number, you go to the table.
01:49This is the room that corresponds with table one.
01:53And on the inside, the person has to give their ID.
01:59The person's checking the woman's ID number right now.
02:02Once it's confirmed, she goes into a voting booth, and there she has three minutes to
02:08make her vote.
02:10Once she's finished voting, she gets a receipt out of the electronic voting machine, and
02:15that goes in this box right there, so that there's a backup for every electronic vote.
02:22And then when they're done, they get their fingerprints to prove that they've done the
02:26vote.
02:27And that's it.
02:28The whole process takes about three minutes.
02:30And basically, that's how it works here.
02:33A lot of people, 96% of the polling stations are already open as of 8.30 in the morning.
02:38It looks like things are going really smooth here in Venezuela on Election Day today, in
02:43which millions of people have come out to choose their next president.
02:47And usually, traditionally, voting in Venezuela is seen as a celebration, as a festivity of
02:56the Venezuelan people, as they express their will.
02:58How is the feeling?
02:59How is the mood in these early hours in the voting centers?
03:02How are people, the lines?
03:04How big are they?
03:05How has the turnout been so far?
03:20Since we have communications problems, we lost contact, but we'll be right back with
03:24Brian and our special envoy in Caracas, and we're going to continue providing details
03:28of this important Election Day being held in Venezuela.
03:31For now, continue with the programming of The Lesser English.
03:35Thank you.
03:36Thank you.
03:37Thank you.