CORRESPONDENT_ SAVE Act, Colombian Style (John Gizzi - NEWSMAX)

NEWSMAX

CORRESPONDENT

SAVE Act, Colombian Style

VIDEO

By John Gizzi
Monday, 01 June 2026 07:07 PM EDT
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At a time when Senate Democrats have stalled the SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) to ensure more honest and accurate voting throughout the U.S., Colombia has for years employed and enforced strict rules for voting that clearly work.

In effect, the Colombians — who began the first step toward choosing a new president in an internationally watched election Sunday — have long had their own version of the SAVE Act. At a briefing in Bogota two days before the voting began, Newsmax asked an expert on election law whether Colombia permitted early voting or absentee ballots as the U.S. does.

"We don't have early voting or remote [absentee] voting," the expert replied without hesitation, adding that "Mexico tried something like that and it's not the best [way to conduct voting]."

Beginning under the Clinton administration in 1993, the U.S. has extended voting to include early voting as well as absentee voting without the traditional reasons such as illness or anticipated out-of-town travel.

In Colombia, however, every eligible voter must show up at polling places in which citizens have been trained to sit at the estimated 122,000 "voting tables" nationwide and place the folded paper ballots in cardboard boxes.

The lone exception to voting in person is Colombian expatriates living in other countries, who cast votes at embassies and consulates. The results are promptly submitted to the national counting authorities in Bogota.

Identification is required, and all voters carry a national ID card with which to prove their identity and thus cast a vote. At the close of the voting period on Sunday — 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. — the votes are tabulated and counted twice before the outcome is announced and sent to a national voting center for an official count.

Any required recount is done manually and in front of witnesses selected by the presidential candidates.

In Sunday's election, voter turnout reached 23.7 million, or about 57.41% of the electorate, higher than in the 2022 election, which drew 54.9%. 

In surprising results, conservative hopeful and first-time candidate Abelardo de la Espriella placed first with 43.7%, roughly a 655,000-vote lead out of 10.3 million votes cast, and leftist Sen. Ivan Cepeda followed with about 40.9%.

Thus, the two will meet in a runoff June 21.

"There was no large-scale electoral fraud, as [lame-duck left-wing President Gustavo] Petro had been anticipating before the election," concluded a study by the nonpartisan Colombia Risk Analysis firm. "The results were announced on time, accepted by the winners, and acknowledged by the losers, and the isolated anomalies recorded were insufficient to alter the overall result or cast doubt on the validity of the vote."

But the report also concluded that Petro "is likely to continue pushing the fraud narrative ahead of the runoff."

However, international observers from the International Republican Institute (IRI), the European Union (EU), and the Organization of American States (OAS) are expected to conclude that the Colombian elections were fair and honest and that their system works.

"Amazing," House Foreign Affairs Committee member Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., told Newsmax. "The Colombian election went well because voting was conducted the way it used to be here."

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READ MORE: https://www.newsmax.com/john-gizzi/save-america-act-colombia-election/2026/06/01/id/1258209/

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