00:00Hello, you're watching Terrestrial English, I'm Luis Alberto Matos, and these are the
00:08headlines at this hour.
00:10Since the very early hours of the morning, the Venezuelan people is going to the polls
00:14to elect their president in a very important presidential election being held all over
00:18the national territory where over 21 million Venezuelans are called to participate.
00:23Let's go now live to Venezuela with our special envoy, Brian Mears, for all the updates of
00:28this day.
00:29So, Brian, what can you tell us at these very hours in the morning of how the elections
00:33is unfolding?
00:35Well, good morning from the Fermin Toro Voting Center.
00:43It's a voting center located very close to the Miraflores Palace, so there's a high level
00:48of military people who are just here voting.
00:52And I want to just walk you through the process here of how it happens.
00:55People come in and they see their, they see these lists of numbers on the walls and they
01:02correspond to the last two digits of their ID card.
01:06And so by looking at these lists, then they know what table they have to go to.
01:10And I'll walk you into the voting center now just so you can see how it's working.
01:14There's some people standing at the door from the Plata Republica, who are the people overseeing
01:20the security of the elections.
01:22And they make sure that the line doesn't get too big inside of the voting center.
01:27Coming in here, you have two volunteers giving out information, and you have some military
01:34personnel standing around here, because this guy we're walking by, he's like the commander
01:39of the troops who are coming in and voting this morning here.
01:42So it's a lot of palace guards and things like that.
01:46So corresponding with your ID number, you go to the table.
01:49This is the room that corresponds with table one.
01:53And on the inside, the person has to give their ID.
01:59The person's checking the woman's ID number right now.
02:02Once it's confirmed, she goes into a voting booth, and there she has three minutes to
02:08make her vote.
02:10Once she's finished voting, she gets a receipt out of the electronic voting machine, and
02:15that goes in this box right there, so that there's a backup for every electronic vote.
02:22And then when they're done, they get their fingerprints to prove that they've done the
02:26vote.
02:27And that's it.
02:28The whole process takes about three minutes.
02:30And basically, that's how it works here.
02:33A lot of people, 96% of the polling stations are already open as of 8.30 in the morning.
02:38It looks like things are going really smooth here in Venezuela on Election Day today, in
02:43which millions of people have come out to choose their next president.
02:47And usually, traditionally, voting in Venezuela is seen as a celebration, as a festivity of
02:56the Venezuelan people, as they express their will.
02:58How is the feeling?
02:59How is the mood in these early hours in the voting centers?
03:02How are people, the lines?
03:04How big are they?
03:05How has the turnout been so far?
03:20Since we have communications problems, we lost contact, but we'll be right back with
03:24Brian and our special envoy in Caracas, and we're going to continue providing details
03:28of this important Election Day being held in Venezuela.
03:31For now, continue with the programming of The Lesser English.
03:35Thank you.
03:36Thank you.
03:37Thank you.
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