A Uruguayan mistakenly placed US$600 in the voting envelope. Will he be able to recover them?

( Spanish) – An unusual error shook the calm elections in Uruguay. A man placed US$600 in cash in the voting envelope instead of the voting sheet, reported the Montevideo Electoral Board.

According to the country’s electoral authorities, more than 2,440,000 Uruguayans They went to vote on Sunday passed without any incident occurring.

The error occurred at a voting center in the La Unión neighborhood, in Montevideo. When inserting the voting sheet into the envelope, a man placed 6 US$100 bills and then inserted the envelope into the ballot box. Minutes after exercising his right to vote, the man returned to the scene and told the officials what had happened.

The electoral law establishes that the polls cannot be opened until voting hours end and the counting begins. The Montevideo Electoral Board registered the complaint and informed the man that he had to wait for the scrutiny so that the electoral workers could determine if the money was indeed there.

After 7:30 pm, the time when the voting centers close to begin the count, the money was found in one of the envelopes. The officials drew up a record leaving a record.

Mary López, president of the Montevideo Electoral Board, told that it is common for people to insert foreign objects, papers or bills into the envelopes. “The person almost always carries the voting sheet in their pocket or wallet and then a public transport ticket, identity card or low-value bills are inserted there.”

López said that the money was found during the primary scrutiny and that now the man will have to wait for the departmental scrutiny to recover the money (a second definitive scrutiny, which is carried out department by department this week).

“In any case, that vote was annulled, since there was a foreign object inside the envelope,” said the electoral leader.

López said that on other occasions when they have found money it is donated to social works. “In the last elections we bought a dough mixer that was donated, and in the internal elections [en junio de este año] “We bought a giant pot for a children’s picnic area.”

In Uruguay, US$600 is equivalent to just over a monthly national minimum wage, according to data from February 2024.