85,000 Troops to Guard Argentina’s Primary Elections

About 85,000 members of the Armed Forces and the Security Forces will be involved in the custody and security operation of the Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory Primary Elections (PASO) to be held next Sunday in Argentina.

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Army, Navy and Air Force personnel will be part of the operation, together with members of the National Gendarmerie, the Naval Prefecture, the Federal Police, the Airport Security Police and the Provincial Police, under the orders of Brigadier General Jorge Fabián Berredo, appointed as Electoral General Commander (CGE), said the Emco in a press release.

The Emco specified that the uniformed troops will be joined by 3,100 land vehicles, a "Hercules" C-130 aircraft, 12 helicopters, three boats and around 100 mules, which will transport ballot boxes in the mountainous regions of the country.

"The operation will have coverage in the 17,432 polling places. The complexity of the operation lies in its decentralized and simultaneous nature throughout the country," said military sources.

The tweet reads, "This year, open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections will be held on August 13 in Argentina."

The security and custody operation will be carried out in the 24 electoral districts of the South American country, and covers material collection sites, the premises where the polling stations will operate, the custody of ballot boxes and documentation during their transport in the vehicles of the Argentine Post Office, as well as the counting and scrutiny sites.

On the other hand, the public bus and train service will be free of charge in 22 of the 24 districts of the country on Sunday during the PASO, in order to "guarantee accessibility and the right to vote for all people".

"We are going to make the entire transportation system of national jurisdiction available to citizens, so that they can go to the polls on Sunday", expressed this day the Minister of Transportation, Diego Giuliano, in a statement and maintained that "almost all the provinces of the country accompanied us in this important measure".

Public transport will be free on Sunday in all districts of the country, except in two: the province of Jujuy (north), which did not adhere to the national measure, and the province of Tierra del Fuego (south), where transport is under municipal jurisdiction, at the mayoral level.

A total of 35,405,013 citizens are eligible to vote on Sunday in the PASO, where 22 presidential formulas of 15 political spaces will compete to enter the general elections to be held on October 22.

Voting in the PASO is mandatory for citizens, while in order to be eligible to vote in the October elections, candidates must obtain at least 1.5 percent of the total votes in the primaries.

The October general elections will also include the election of 43 Mercosur parliamentarians; 24 national senators and 130 national deputies.