A vote that began on the other side of the world
On Monday 25 May, while it was still Sunday in Colombia, the first Colombian citizens abroad cast their ballots in New Zealand. Infobae reported that the overseas voting process began there due to the time difference, and continues with a unified schedule from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time across 67 countries, over seven days, until the close of Sunday 31 May, when the main day takes place inside Colombian territory. El Universal reported that the initial process unfolds in 253 diplomatic and consular sites, and that the process organisation itself anticipates reinforcements for the Sunday close.
The overall figure was reported by the Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil in its previous-day bulletin. Semana quoted the body: “a total of 1,414,661 Colombians residing in other countries are registered to participate in the elections”, of whom 777,343 are women and 637,318, men. The registered diaspora represents, in numerical terms, a significant proportion of Colombia’s total electoral register, which the Registraduría itself places above 41 million people.
The diaspora map: three countries hold two-thirds of the overseas electorate
The country-by-country figures published by the Registraduría sketch a geography with three clear poles. Semana, citing the official bulletin, specified that the United States holds the largest number of registered Colombians —454,262 citizens at 57 sites and 684 tables— followed by Spain with 307,996 and Venezuela with 180,782 people. Those three countries alone account for 943,040 potential voters, two-thirds of the overseas register.
El Tiempo added that the Foreign Ministry identified as strategic sites for personnel reinforcement, beyond those three, the consulates in Chile, France, Panama, Canada, England, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Germany and Australia. The United States and Spain are the two countries the Foreign Ministry recognised as the highest-flow on the first day. Semana published a 26 May balance from the Registraduría and the Foreign Ministry noting “high turnout” in Argentina, Canada, the United States, Spain and England.
The national registrar Hernán Penagos confirmed it in operational terms. El Universal reported his acknowledgement of “high peaks” of voters in the United States, “mainly in Washington and Orlando”, during the first day.
The controversy over 58 polling stations moved within 24 hours of the close
Less than a day before the Sunday vote, an administrative decision opened the largest operational controversy of the overseas process. The Registraduría Nacional reported in an official communiqué published on 25 May that the Foreign Ministry changed the address of 58 polling stations abroad, distributed across 16 countries: 25 in the United States, 8 in Brazil, 5 in Spain, 4 in Germany, 3 in Venezuela, 2 in China, 2 in Ecuador, and one each in Curaçao, Australia, Cuba, Chile, Denmark, Ghana, Mexico, Norway and Poland. The electoral body’s communiqué clarified that “the consular offices are responsible for defining polling stations abroad”.
Infobae reported that the Interior Minister, Armando Benedetti, did not offer a public explanation for the modifications less than 24 hours before the close, and that Colombian citizens in the affected countries criticised and questioned the move. The Registraduría’s own communiqué redirected citizens to the official application “aVotar” and to each consulate’s website and social media to verify the effective polling location.
The largest electoral oversight deployment in the country’s history
The Registraduría and the Consejo Nacional Electoral framed the process as a massive oversight exercise. Infobae reported that during the voting week, 29 consulates have reinforced assistance, to which eight additional consulates will be added on Sunday, raising the Registraduría’s support to 65 officials deployed abroad, plus external international audit conducted by the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights through its Centre for Electoral Promotion and Assistance (Iidh/Capel).
The total deployment fits within a figure the CNE president himself described as historic. Diario Libre, citing CNE president Cristian Quiroz, reported on Friday 29 May that around 15,000 national and international observers will accompany the first round, in what the official described as “the largest deployment in the history of the country”.
Two specific missions deserve attention. Colombia’s Misión de Observación Electoral (MOE) reported on 28 May that it will deploy 2,532 observers articulated with 34 regional coordinations, covering 425 municipalities —77 per cent of the country’s electoral potential— including specific teams of 76 trans and non-binary people to oversee the Trans Vote Protocol, and 13 people with disabilities to track accessibility conditions.
The European Union Election Observation Mission —which already certified the 8 March legislative elections— is present for the presidential vote. El Tiempo carried in May the remarks of the EU EOM deputy head, José Antonio de Gabriel, according to whom Colombia “is well protected” for the process due to the manual nature of the system, “everything is visible in the count at the tables and the data are recorded in the E14 and E22 forms”. The European mission has 150 observers in the territory during the previous weeks and Sunday’s day.
The registrar’s warnings and the false information already circulating
The national registrar issued, from the start of the overseas process, an explicit warning about the early dissemination of supposed results. Infobae recorded that Penagos warned about the social-media circulation of figures presented as partial results and said that polling officers or electoral witnesses who release data before the official close may face “disciplinary investigations and even criminal sanctions”. El Colombiano quoted the official: “false information is circulating on electoral results at overseas polling tables, which is impossible because that information cannot be released”.
Penagos stressed that results can only begin to be known “once elections close next Sunday in Colombia”. The national Misión de Observación Electoral, for its part, had warned in its reports before the electoral cycle that 74 per cent of the disinformation narratives identified during the cycle aimed at distorting information about the electoral process itself.
Overseas vote by international constituency: how it counts
The Colombian diaspora does not vote on a separate ballot from the national one for the presidential election. Its votes are added to the national tally, unlike the House of Representatives election, where a specific international constituency exists. The mechanical consequence is that the diaspora can tilt results in close scenarios, of the kind the major polling firms have been projecting during the final week of the campaign.
Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio reinforced the symbolic component of the process. Infobae quoted the minister in her reading of the day: voting is “a democratic duty that connects the diaspora with the future of the country”. In Paris, according to the same outlet, Ambassador Alfonso Prada confirmed that the General Consulate will be open until Friday 29, and that during the weekend the vote will move to the Federico García Lorca School. The embassies in Tokyo, Beijing and Berlin reported in their official communiqués the normal close of the first day.
Sunday: 2,181 tables, RFID-chipped kits and the simultaneous close
Sunday’s day concentrates the bulk of the operation. El Tiempo specified that between 25 and 30 May, 1,489 tables operate, and that on 31 May that figure rises to 2,181 tables to handle the main closing day. The same outlet specified that electoral kits carry an RFID chip that allows tracking anywhere in the world, and that to vote it is indispensable to present a physical Colombian citizenship card —yellow with holograms or digital on mobile device—, with photocopies, loss reports or the passport not accepted.
What Diálogo Ciudadano is watching
This outlet’s coverage follows three threads over the next 48 hours: the behaviour of the polling stations moved by the Foreign Ministry, the report from Iidh/Capel and the EU EOM on the in-person Sunday vote, and the difference between overseas and national results once the Registraduría publishes preliminaries. The overseas process is, by definition, a transnational test of Colombia’s institutional scaffolding: the anomalies documented or discarded in these seven days will weigh on the reading of 31 May.
The simultaneous Sunday close groups two ballot boxes that geography had separated by a week. The question is whether the result joins them with the same operational legitimacy.
This piece will be updated with the preliminary results published by the Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil after the close of the 31 May 2026 day.