Ecuadorian elections (referendum, 21 April 2024)

[Sir John Johns]

An English-language article summing up the political and legal background of the Yasuní referendum and what is at stake:

https://constitutionnet.org/news/oil-extraction-or-biodiversity-protection-dilemma-ecuadors-upcoming-referendum

The campaign song produced by the CONAIE to support the ‘yes’ in the referendums on Yasuní and Chocó Andino:

[Oryxslayer]

My hot take going into the vote today is that theres a good chance RC doesn't come in first anymore.  In fact, for the first time in a decade there are now possible but not probable universes where the Correaists don't make the runoff. If it happens the two slots would go to one of the surging security driven candidates and Zurita who seemingly has a strange combination of sympathy, security,  and idealistic voters right now.

And obviously,  if any of this happens, it's not RCs fault. They expected a anti-Lasso election where they would easily get swept into office.  The 11th hour though has focused the election solely on security,  and Gonzales is not the right person for the moment.

[Mike88]

Voting is currently under way.

At 10am, around 20% of voters had cast a ballot. Polls close at 5pm local time (11pm London time, 6pm NY time)

[Sir John Johns]

* No incident has been reported so far in Ecuador itself but there are a lot of troubles with the telematic system used by Ecuadorians living abroad to vote, a situation that has led the Foreign Ministry to issue a statement calling the CNE to rapidly fix the problem.

* Christian Zurita voted in a school in northern Quito protected by a police and military escort, the first time such measure is required for a presidential candidate.

https://twitter.com/yali_loaiza/status/1693289713979760646

Zurita has affirmed earlier that he has received a threatening comment (‘tremble Christian’) on his TikTok account from a user using the ‘Cartel Jalisco NG’ screen name.

* Cedatos has announced it will not conduct an exit poll as originally planned, arguing of the security situation which could put the lives of its pollster team members in jeopardy.

[Peeperkorn]

* Christian Zurita voted in a school in northern Quito protected by a police and military escort, the first time such measure is required for a presidential candidate.

https://twitter.com/yali_loaiza/status/1693289713979760646

Dukakis vibes.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

* Christian Zurita voted in a school in northern Quito protected by a police and military escort, the first time such measure is required for a presidential candidate.

https://twitter.com/yali_loaiza/status/1693289713979760646

Dukakis vibes.

If Dukakis had stepped up to the plate after Jesse Jackson’s murder, I guess.

[Sir John Johns]

Yes, the Dukakis image also sprang to my mind.

But the clothing controversy at the moment is about Daniel Noboa going to the poll station wearing a bulletproof vest while his wife, an Internet influencer, had no right for such protection and was wearing only fine, light and white clothes.

https://twitter.com/LoloMino/status/1693280992860033241

Relatedly (or not), Noboa’s first marriage with Gabriela Goldbaum (the daughter of a Guayaquil wealthy businessman) lasted only one year and ended with a very acrimonious divorce process and a judicial war between the Noboa and the Goldbaum families (involving also the company of Goldbaum). Gabriela then accused in the medias her husband of having a very conservative conception of gender roles.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Where can we follow the results?

[Sir John Johns]

The link I have found for the official results is this one, but don’t know if it will worked as it is apparently geo-blocked at the moment (at least I can't access to it and I haven't be able to load the CNE website for a while)

https://www.cne.gob.ec/resultados-electorales/

For televised coverage, you can always try TC Televisión.

Polls will be closed at 5:00 PM (Quito time) with the exit polls being released shortly thereafter and the first official results being published at 7:00.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Notably, in the one poll that we have from after Villavicencio's assassination saw Jan Topic surge into second place presumably as the candidate who has aimed to make 'security' his number one issue, especially as a former soldier in the French Foreign Legion. A run-off between Gonzalez and Topic would certainly serve as a stark contrast of two very different vision's for Ecuador.

He's running as candidate for the socially conservative 'Social Christian Party' although it's notable that from what I've read Topic himself doesn't seem like a very 'movement' type Conservative, doing things like smoking marijuanna (later revealed/claimed to be CBD) on a podcast which drew a lot of fire from partisans in the PSC. He very much seems to just be using PSC as a personal vehicle to the presidency, although his security background makes him a good fit as well.

Gonzalez WAS polling in the high 30's and low 40's a few months ago, although she's down to the mid to high 20's so I'd have to assume that anything under 25% is a huge loss for her tonight and anything over 30% will be a decent showing for the second round.

[Mike88]

30 minutes untill polls close. At 3pm, 60.7% of voters had already cast a ballot.

* Cedatos has announced it will not conduct an exit poll as originally planned, arguing of the security situation which could put the lives of its pollster team members in jeopardy.

Polls will be closed at 5:00 PM (Quito time) with the exit polls being released shortly thereafter and the first official results being published at 7:00.

Will there be exit polls by other polling companies, or did all cancelled the idea because of security issues?

[Sir John Johns]

There are three polling companies and one individual registered with the CNE to publish exit polls:

- Centroinvest (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Especializados, CIEES)
- Corpmont Marketing
- Click Research
- Luis Esteban Lapo

As far as I know, none has indicated they will not publish an exit poll.

However, I would warn people to take any exit poll coming from that source with a grain of salt as the debacle of last February (with exit polls predicting wrongly the victory of Viteri in Guayaquil) can attest. Any poll coming from another source must be consider with the greatest skepticism; in addition to Cedatos, the other relatively serious one, Perfiles de Opinión, isn’t conducting an exit poll so if there is an exit poll attributed to these companies, it is a fake poll.

This is also why I haven’t much commented about the polling of the various candidates; there is a lot of uncertainty about the seriousness and impartiality of the polls and about the ability of the pollsters to reach rural and young voters. Additionally, the polls published before the assassination of Villavicencio indicated a high share of undecided voters (over 50% in the latest Cedatos poll if I remember correctly) and the weakness of political organizations, the volatility of voters and the unprecedented character of the election (a flash campaign with little time to promote the candidates) add another layer of uncertainty.

Edit: neither is Clima Social conducting an exit poll

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

https://twitter.com/EbravoteleSUR/status/1693388061919375429?s=20

That's a solid turnout for what's happened, hats off to Ecuadorians!

[Sir John Johns]

Corpmont exit poll:

Luisa González (RC) 32.8%
Daniel Noboa (ADN) 20.5%
Jan Topic (PSC-PSP-CD) 18.3%
Christian Zurita (Construye) 13.7%
Otto Sonnenholzner (Avanza-SUMA) 7.8%
Yaku Pérez (UP-PSE-DS) 4.9%
Bolívar Armijos (AMIGO) 1.1%
Xavier Hervas (RETO) 0.9%

[Sir John Johns]

https://twitter.com/EbravoteleSUR/status/1693388061919375429?s=20

That's a solid turnout for what's happened, hats off to Ecuadorians!

Vote is mandatory in Ecuador except for electors aged 16-17 and the elder/disabled ones.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Corpmont exit poll:

Luisa González (RC) 32.8%
Daniel Noboa (ADN) 20.5%
Jan Topic (PSC-PSP-CD) 18.3%
Christian Zurita (Construye) 13.7%
Otto Sonnenholzner (Avanza-SUMA) 7.8%
Yaku Pérez (UP-PSE-DS) 4.9%
Bolívar Armijos (AMIGO) 1.1%
Xavier Hervas (RETO) 0.9%

Noboa AT SECOND? He was polling at 3%!

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Corpmont exit poll:

Luisa González (RC) 32.8%
Daniel Noboa (ADN) 20.5%
Jan Topic (PSC-PSP-CD) 18.3%
Christian Zurita (Construye) 13.7%
Otto Sonnenholzner (Avanza-SUMA) 7.8%
Yaku Pérez (UP-PSE-DS) 4.9%
Bolívar Armijos (AMIGO) 1.1%
Xavier Hervas (RETO) 0.9%

Woah, that would be quite the jump for Noboa from what I know of the polling that was done beforehand? But as you mentioned earlier, I'm sure we should be careful /w these results. Solid result for Gonzalez if she's above 30 points albeit not her 'dream numbers' she was polling at whereas Topic would be quite disappointed.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Corpmont exit poll:

Luisa González (RC) 32.8%
Daniel Noboa (ADN) 20.5%
Jan Topic (PSC-PSP-CD) 18.3%
Christian Zurita (Construye) 13.7%
Otto Sonnenholzner (Avanza-SUMA) 7.8%
Yaku Pérez (UP-PSE-DS) 4.9%
Bolívar Armijos (AMIGO) 1.1%
Xavier Hervas (RETO) 0.9%

Woah, that would be quite the jump for Noboa from what I know of the polling that was done beforehand? But as you mentioned earlier, I'm sure we should be careful /w these results. Solid result for Gonzalez if she's above 30 points albeit not her 'dream numbers' she was polling at whereas Topic would be quite disappointed.

No the numbers for Topic are fine all things considered. He's still polling higher than before the assassination. We should just be happy we don't get another Bukele

[Sir John Johns]

Also, the president of the CNE has confirmed rumors that were circulating: there has been an attempt to hack the telematic system used by voters abroad. She has mentioned the informatic attacks were coming from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia and China.

https://twitter.com/notimundoec/status/1693391475155857545

The votes wouldn't have been altered but it may have sufficiently delayed the restoration of the system to prevent many voters abroad to cast their votes.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Corpmont exit poll:

Luisa González (RC) 32.8%
Daniel Noboa (ADN) 20.5%
Jan Topic (PSC-PSP-CD) 18.3%
Christian Zurita (Construye) 13.7%
Otto Sonnenholzner (Avanza-SUMA) 7.8%
Yaku Pérez (UP-PSE-DS) 4.9%
Bolívar Armijos (AMIGO) 1.1%
Xavier Hervas (RETO) 0.9%

Woah, that would be quite the jump for Noboa from what I know of the polling that was done beforehand? But as you mentioned earlier, I'm sure we should be careful /w these results. Solid result for Gonzalez if she's above 30 points albeit not her 'dream numbers' she was polling at whereas Topic would be quite disappointed.

No the numbers for Topic are fine all things considered. He's still polling higher than before the assassination. We should just be happy we don't get another Bukele

Well yeah, but I'm not sure what that matters in a run-off situation. He got a boost, but still 'no bueno'. Of course this is all based off one exit poll... We'll see what the results are.

[Keep Calm and ...]

Another Exit Poll

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1693389089960321449

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1693392487023534266

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Noboa, huh! Big if true. I saw people anecdotally saying he had a good performance in the debate but besides that he’s been a total non-factor for me. Very interesting to see how the rest of the night plays out, whether or not those polls are accurate.

[Oryxslayer]

Noboa, huh! Big if true. I saw people anecdotally saying he had a good performance in the debate but besides that he’s been a total non-factor for me. Very interesting to see how the rest of the night plays out, whether or not those polls are accurate.

Same. Especially if my recent expectation is correct that anyone who makes the runoff vs Gonzalez will easily consolidate the security vote for the runoff.  

Also no surprise on Yasuni, though I would be interested to see if the No vote correlates with anything.

[skbl17]

Looks like we have an official results page.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Noboa, huh! Big if true. I saw people anecdotally saying he had a good performance in the debate but besides that he’s been a total non-factor for me. Very interesting to see how the rest of the night plays out, whether or not those polls are accurate.

Same. Especially if my recent expectation is correct that anyone who makes the runoff vs Gonzalez will easily consolidate the security vote for the runoff.  

Also no surprise on Yasuni, though I would be interested to see if the No vote correlates with anything.

I’m inclined to agree, but I think Noboa might have a more difficult time. Topic has a brand, Noboa is a nepo baby.