Last April, Mauro Graterol arrived at the Venezuelan consulate in Lima, Perú, to register to vote. Instead, he found out he was not eligible because officials were asking for an unexpected requirement he didn’t have: a permanent residence permit.
“I’m 60 years old, and I’ve always participated in elections in my country, but for the first time, I won’t be able to vote because the government didn’t allow me,” Graterol said.
Graterol is not alone.
The permanent residence permit requirement, instituted in 2018, has disqualified millions of Venezuelan immigrants living across Latin America and Spain with temporary residence visas or refugee status from being able to register to vote.
The Venezuelan diaspora has grown significantly in the past decade. Close to 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country in recent years, escaping political turmoil, poverty and increased oppression. Of those, about 5 million are eligible to vote, representing a quarter of the electorate.
But the government stopped registering out-of-country voters in 2018, and its registry remained closed until March of this year, when it briefly reopened for one month to allow Venezuelans abroad to sign up or update their domicile.
Only 508 people were able to make these updates this year, adding very little to the list of 69,000 voters who were already registered before 2018.
In Colombia — home to 2.8 million Venezuelans — only 25 were able to sign up for voting.
None of the roughly 800,000 Venezuelans living in the US will be able to vote because all consulates and embassies have remained closed since 2019, when the two countries broke diplomatic relations.
Venezuelan immigrants interviewed in Mexico, Colombia, Perú and Spain described significant delays at consulates, unexpected requirements and imprecise information from public officials when they tried to sign up.
Some consulates asked for an up-to-date passport to be able to vote, which can take several months to get and costs up to $300.
“Some of these new conditions are unconstitutional,” said Edgard Simón Rodríguez, a Venezuelan political activist in Florida. “For example, according to the law, the electoral registry should always accept new voters, but it remained closed to people abroad for six years.” Also, in the past, Venezuelans only needed a national identification card (cédula) to participate in elections, not an up-to-date passport.
Consulate officials in Mexico City, Lima and Barcelona declined to make comments.
In Barcelona, as of July 17, Venezuelans had no information about where to vote. Elections are on July 28.
Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro is under big pressure. The country will hold elections in less than two weeks, and he’s performing badly in the polls. Observers are questioning how far he might go to cling to power, and some say one strategy has been deliberately making it difficult for voters abroad to participate in elections.
“You can assume that most of those votes would be against the government, so there is an incentive there for the government to try to disenfranchise or discourage those people from voting,” said Fernanda Buril, deputy director of the Center for Applied Research and Learning at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).
David Smilde, a professor of sociology at Tulane University who has researched Venezuela, said, “Maduro is trying to whittle away the opposition vote and, on the other hand, maximize his chances so that he can actually pull it out or come close.”
Last October, Maduro promised to grant free and fair elections after a long negotiation process with the US.
But the commitment was broken after the Maduro government blocked the leading opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado, from running.
“In Venezuela, the playing field for elections is tilted,” Buril said. “For years, we’ve seen abuse of state resources, disqualification of opposition candidates and a complete monopoly over the media.”
These non-competitive conditions have left many Venezuelans abroad feeling disappointed and skeptical about electoral events.
“I lost interest in participating,” said Jocelyn Colinas in Mexico City. “I feel tired and frustrated after years trying for a change in Venezuela, so years ago, I decided to disconnect from the news to protect my mental health.”
Brandon Caballero, who lives in Barcelona, Spain, didn’t even look into registering because his vote, he said, won’t make any difference. “In Venezuela, change does not depend on voting.”
But for many Venezuelans, this is the closest the opposition has been to pushing Maduro out of power.
After Machado was banned from running, the opposition managed to unite behind one candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who is well ahead in the polls.
And many Venezuelans are hopeful.
“I have a lot of faith,” said Nereida Rosales in Mexico City. “I believe change is possible this time, and I will return as soon as it happens,” she said, breaking down in tears.
At stake in this election is the future of Venezuela’s democracy, as well as for the millions of Venezuelans who have left their country.
Abby Ardiles contributed to this report from Lima, Perú.