I’ll keep this to the facts since you’re not reading this for my opinion. My wife is Colombian, a resident of Colombia and actively registered to vote in all elections. I silently observed but did not take pictures since it was a polling location.

Prior to arrival my wife verified her polling location, it was at a local covered soccer/basketball court. Her voter portal profile told her to check in at a specific booth number rather than by last name. She also received a letter for this about a week before.

Police and poll watchers were everywhere. Each booth had 2 poll watchers standing a few feet away with an elevated view of the happenings. ID was not required to enter but I was stopped and verified that I should be there since I do stand out.

Once we were at the booth my wife handed over her government issued ID to a worker that was checking people prior to getting to the voting documents. There were 6 workers at the table performing various tasks. This does not include the poll watchers. The first worker visually verified her face matched then inserted the card into hand held device similar to the portable payment system restaurants use. After a few moments the system pulled up her voter information, she reviewed it on screen, signed on the screen then she provided a finger print that was digitally captured. Then her ID and a printed receipt were given to her.

We waited about a minute while other people were processed ahead of us. When it was her turn she handed her ID and the printed receipt to a person sitting at a table. They reviewed the info on the receipt and handed them to someone across the table who placed it on the table and held onto it for now. They gathered multiple documents and handed them to my wife and instructed her to go use the voting booth to make her selections.

The voting booth was made of cardboard and resembled 2 upright arcade cabinets back to back with a flat surface with a pen tied to a string on each side. I saw another voting booth getting broken down because someone wrote on it.

The ballots appear to be somewhat idiot proof. I didn’t read over them because again, I was keeping my distance and only observing. The main election ballot was a grid of all the candidates names and faces in full color photos, each about the size of a passport photo. To vote for someone you make a mark across their photo. Other lower level elections are similar design but smaller and different political groups have their name and logo rather than the face.

When she finished the voting she returned to the same table, presented each ballot type and they instructed her which ballot goes in which box rather than a single ballot for everything. Once all ballots were deposited she was asked to sign a paper and include an ink finger print using the same digit she used for the digital capture earlier and was given a wipe to clean the ink off her finger. 2 different ballot workers observed the ballot deposit and signature occur then each initialed on the form too. Finally they returned her ID to her with the receipt. Then we left.