Voting in Peru

So we voted on Sunday for the mayor of Lima and of Ate, the suburb of Lima where we used to live. It was interesting to me, as my first time to vote in a country other than the U.S.

First of all, it is obligatory for everyone 18 and older to vote or pay a $65 fine. I must say, I really wanted to pay the fine instead of fighting traffic for an hour and waiting in long lines to vote for people I don't know much about.....but my conscience got the best of me (and we figured it to be cheaper to pay for the gas and lunch out than the fine, albeit barely).

I was surprised, as I walked into my designated voting place (an elementary school) that the room I was to vote in was empty - no lines! I got many stares as I carried my tall, white self into the voting room, holding my Peruvian i.d. out, just in case anyone might think I was totally lost. I acted like I knew what I was doing, voted for the two men Brent had told me to vote for and felt really good about myself. (Now, don't get me wrong, if this had been presidential elections, I would have been much more prepared and ready to vote intelligently.)

Just to make sure nobody gets by without voting or paying the fine, each voter must put his right middle finger into a bottle of purple ink, completely covering the fingernail. Yep. It is also a law not to wash the ink off for 24 hrs....as if.....it is now 3 days later and I still can't get all the ink off! After voting, we went to the mall to eat lunch and Lucas kept pointing out people with purple fingers - literally pointing, and announcing, "Mom, she voted too!" It was cute.

The big debate is if this will be the last year of the "obligatory voting" in Peru. Some argue that if it weren't obligatory, most people wouldn't bother. On the other hand, this is supposedly a free democracy and forced voting takes us back to the days of dictatorship. They estimate that 2o% of voters decide, while in line to vote, who they will vote for. Another percentage of people are illiterate, so no names are on the ballot, only pictures or symbols of a certain political party.

At times, I feel so much more like a foreigner than others and even with my blue Peruvian i.d. in hand, this was one of them. I was, however, made more aware that I do have a responsibility to be informed and play a part in this country, seeing that I am a citizen. I would expect nothing less of a foreigner living in the U.S. with citizenship status.

On our way home, once again fighting traffic for an hour, we saw one voting line that was at least 4 city blocks long - oh man, I was so glad I wasn't in that one!

We just heard today that 25% of the ballots were in a "to be observed more closely" pile, because of people's inability to follow instructions! Really, all you had to do was put an x over the right picture!

To end this little story, the guys I voted for lost, but every time I try to scrape a little bit more of the purple, persistent ink off of my finger, I feel my sense of patriotism growing. God bless Peru!

Miriam