The Central Electoral Board (Junta Central Electoral or JCE) has released the electoral roll for the upcoming elections in February 2024, which includes a total of 8,103,291 eligible voters, and 8,118,214 for the May 2024 elections.
These numbers take into account the recent 2022 Census, which reported a total population of 10,760,028 people. Consequently, the number of eligible voters (individuals over 18 years old) summoned for the February 2024 elections, totaling approximately 8,103,291, represents 75.3% of the Dominican population according to that national study.
Similarly, the voters called for the May 2024 elections, amounting to 8,118,214, correspond to 75.44% of the total population reported in the 2022 census.
It is important to note that these voters are individuals over 18 years of age. Regarding the age distribution, the JCE reports that, for the 2024 elections, 668,060 are individuals over 71 years old, 843,365 are aged 61 to 70, and 1,256,201 fall within the 41 to 60 age range. This means that more than half, specifically 4,211,805 voters, are over 40 years old.
Meanwhile, 1,650,215 voters are between 31 and 40 years old; 898,640 are between 26 and 30 years old; 1,313,167 are between 18 and 25 years old, and 44,367 are minors who will have come of age by the election date.
The JCE explains that for the upcoming elections, there will be a total of 4,420 polling places and 17,317 polling stations.
Census In August of the previous year, when the National Statistics Office (Oficina Nacional de Estadística or ONE) presented the National Census of 2022, the director of that entity, Miosotis Rivas, expressed that the population is growing, but at a much slower rate between each census. This can be observed in the annual average intercensal population growth rate, which stood at 1.10 in 2022, indicating a downward trend, as it was 3.62 in 1960.
In fact, the 2010 census report from ONE has a chapter that explains the decline in the growth rate. It explains that since the late 1960s, a decrease in fertility has been observed in the Dominican Republic.
“This relative decrease in population growth over the last four decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st century can be explained by the simultaneous occurrence of two phenomena. First, starting in the 1960s, with the fall of the dictatorship, doors were opened to emigration, initially almost exclusively to the United States, and later diversifying to other countries in the 1970s. Second, by the late 1960s, a decline in fertility in the Dominican Republic began to occur, a phenomenon that tended to result in smaller family sizes, with the well-known effect of reducing the population growth rate,” it stated.
