Next Sunday, May 31, Colombia will experience the first round of the 2026 presidential elections. It is a crucial day for the country’s future, with 11 candidates competing for the presidential seat, led by Iván Cepeda, Paloma Valencia, Abelardo de la Espriella, and Sergio Fajardo. Citizens will be able to exercise their right to vote from 8:00 to 16:00. Here is what you need to know about how and when the results will be announced and how the votes will be counted.
How will the vote counting be carried out?
Immediately after the polls close at 16:00, the voting jurors will begin counting the votes at each of the 125,000 polling stations. The process is divided into key phases:
- Quick pre-count: this is the informative stage that allows the National Registry to issue bulletins with the progress of the count on the same day of the elections. At this stage, the data is preliminary and has no legal value
- Official scrutiny: this procedure is the only one with legal value during Colombian elections. It is carried out by the scrutiny commissions, made up of judges, notaries, and registrars, in the days following the election day
- Votes abroad: although Colombians residing outside the country begin voting days earlier, the Registry has confirmed that no partial results will be released until the election day on May 31 concludes in the country
View this post on Instagram
At what time will the election results be known?
The National Registrar of Colombia, Hernán Penagos, has indicated that the system is designed to provide information quickly. It is expected that approximately two to two and a half hours after the polls close, there will be very conclusive data about the election.
The announcement of the trend of the counts is likely to be given around 18:30, the moment when it will be known if there is a winner in the first round, or if a second round is required, scheduled for Sunday, June 21.
Read more Paloma Valencia: “If I had been Generation X, I would have been an influencer”
Latest news: candidates, monitoring, and incentives for voters
During the election day, voters will notice important particularities:
- Withdrawals on the ballot: candidates Carlos Caicedo and Luis Gilberto Murillo have declined their presidential aspirations. Since they appear on the ballot, votes cast in their favor will be classified as “unmarked votes”
- Incentive campaigns: to encourage participation in the elections, more than 120 brands have joined the Vale Votar initiative, which offers benefits to those who present their voting certificate
- Process monitoring: the electoral organization has certified 373,612 electoral witnesses from all campaigns, citizens responsible for overseeing the entire process at the polls, including the pre-count and handling of votes
Electoral authorities have called on citizens to go to the polls, to inform themselves about the candidates’ proposals, and to trust the Registry’s management in organizing the democratic process.
Subscribe here to EL PAÍS’s newsletter about Colombia and here to the WhatsApp channel, and receive all the key information about the country’s current affairs.
Read more Vox embraces a white international to unite Europe and achieve an «exit effect» of emigrants
