Nearly 3,000 Colombians in Utah eligible to vote in Colombia's presidential election

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Colombians in Utah will count among those voting in Colombia's presidential election on Sunday.
Nearly 3,000 Colombians in the state are eligible to vote out of 454,262 in all around the United States.
The polling site in Utah will be at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City.

SALT LAKE CITY — With the final round of Colombia's presidential election looming, nearly 3,000 expatriates from the country in Utah are eligible to cast ballots.

Voting in Salt Lake City is set for Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will be held at the South Building of the Salt Lake County Government Center, 2001 S. State. The 2,957 Colombians in Utah eligible to cast ballots count among the 454,262 in all in the United States living outside the country who can vote. Around the world, 1.41 million Colombians living outside the country are eligible to vote, according to Colombian government figures.

"We as Colombians dream of a country that has better opportunities," said Alison Lopez, explaining why she still votes in Colombia's elections though she now lives in West Valley City. Around 16,200 Colombians lived in Utah as of 2024, according to the Migration Policy Institute, though only a fraction, including Lopez, have taken the necessary steps to vote.

With a U.S. citizen relative already here in the United States, Lopez came to the country in 2015 in search of opportunity, same as many. However, while the United States is now her home, she wants more opportunity for Colombians inside Colombia and, to that end, does what she can through the ballot box. "As a Colombian citizen, I dream of my country being better than what it is," she said.

Colombia has installed 253 voting sites for its expatriate citizens in 67 countries outside of Colombia around the world.

In the first round of Colombian presidential voting on May 31, voters narrowed the field of 14 hopefuls to two. Those top vote-getters, Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing lawyer, and Ivan Cepeda, a leftist senator, face off in Sunday's balloting, with the winner to take over from President Gustavo Petro, who can't run again. Cepeda belongs to the incumbent's party.

As in the United States, Lopez said Colombia is very divided politically. "We're really at a critical point. We don't know what could happen if the left wins or if the right wins," she said.

On June 8, Peruvians voted for president of that country, including a contingent in Utah. In fact, many countries set up polling places so citizens living abroad can vote in presidential contests.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.