Thread to discuss any elections in Chile in 2025. Possibly keep it running until December if enough interest.
Looks like Jeannette Jara is on a par with Kast or slightly ahead in first round, however looks very hard for her to add much more votes in the second round.
If you add together Kast+Parisi+Matthei+Kaiser those voters are a big block of right wing/anti communist/populist and whichever one of them gets through (at the moment looks like Kast) ought to get the support of the others.
Kast beats Jara 49%-37% on a hypothetical round 2 in this particular CADEM survey.
That’s a quite a lot of ground to make up, especially since someone with “communist” next to their name is going to struggle to get the centrists and undecideds.
Although curiously enough, the early evidence is that the Communist candidate is sort of a communist in name only. Based on policies put out so far, there isn’t much evidence that they will be doing anything more radical than what Boric was doing…or trying to do.
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Bloomberg usually spouts rubbish on what they say about Chile, but they may be onto something here, despite the dubious notions. (The story seems to assert that mandatory voting would be done for the first time in the coming presidential election, while I seem to recall that the presidential election of 2009 was also mandatory and there was a belief that this somehow favored Piñera. For the coming presidential election, a number of residents of legal age would not be obligated, despite that article’s assertion).
Text:
Chile’s congress is doubling down on plans to compel everyone to vote in this year’s presidential election, imposing a fine on people who fail to do so. That’s good news for ultra-conservative candidate Jose Antonio Kast.
Lawmakers will vote as soon as next week to impose a fine of up to 103,000 pesos ($136) on any citizen or immigrant with residency of five years or more who doesn’t cast their ballot. Given that voter registration in Chile is now automated, that makes the presidential race mandatory for everyone of voting age for the first time in the country’s history.
Polls show the politically less committed disproportionately favor the more extreme Kast, cementing expectations that he will get through the first round of voting in November and then win the runoff in December. But there is a catch. Those same people are less loyal in their support, meaning an upset during the campaign could impact their allegiance and throw the result of the election up in the air.
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Voting used to be mandatory, but registration was optional. In 2012, during Piñera’s first term they registered everyone eligible to vote using Civil Registry data. I received a letter saying I was registered and informing me of my polling place location.
Then with the referendums, the current government made voting mandatory again. Of course, the difference that everyone is registered now whether they ever wanted to be registered or not.
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Just realized today the election date is when I was planning a holiday (in Chile). I think that means I can’t go on holiday on the date of the election.unless I’m willing to miss a mandatory vote. I even called Servel to confirm that today.
I can’t vote from another region. No postal vote.
The same thing happened to me a few years ago, I think 2022, when I had to email a hotel and change the date.
They ought to have a way of voting from another region or by postal vote. I wouldn’t mind some additional identify checks and/or having to pay a fee.
Can’t be good for the hotel industry.
If you’re over 200 km from your voting place, you can get an exemption through Carabineros. My husband I were in La Serena during municipal elections during that time voting was mandatory for registered voters. Servel
I remember there were some sort of stands or tables set up by Carabineros where you could document you were more than 200 km away from your voting location.
Considering how terrible the mail service is here, I don’t see mail voting being at all viable.