One Tica, Ángela Solarta Castañeda, showed just how important voting is to her by driving 14 hours to the nearest place to do so. She lives in Australia, where she can vote at the consulate, 14,000 kilometers from San José.
That’s the first voting precinct to open, because it’s 14 hours ahead of Costa Rica. Voting opens at 6 am February 6th local time. So while it was still 4 pm on Saturday here in Costa Rica, it was 6 am on Sunday in Australia.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal has authorized voting in 52 consulates in 42 countries. In the U.S. there are polls in Miami, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, and Atlanta. Voting is also taking place in Panama, Indonesia, Argentina, Spain, Ecuador, France, India, and South Korea. Tica Sofia Castro traveled four hours by bus and subway to vote in South Korea, where she lives.
There are 50,833 people registered to vote from abroad for this election. In 2018, there were 31,864 registered but just 13.9% of them participated.
