Seven keys to Sunday's election in Argentina

After a frantic, back-and-forth electoral process, Sergio Massa and Javier Milei will face each other today in a runoff election to determine the next Argentine president.

Security

There are 16,888 voting centers throughout the country, with a total of 106,160 voting tables. They will be guarded by more than 86,000 members of the national and provincial armed and security forces responsible for the custody and security of the elections.

The bunkers

The campaign commands or “bunkers” for the candidates are both located in the captial of Buenos Aires. The candidates will be welcoming guests and supporters as the afternoon progresses. Sergio Massa, representing Unión por la Patria (UxP), will have his bunker in the cultural space C Complejo Art Media, located at Corrientes Avenue 6271, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Chacarita. Milei, representing La Libertad Avanza (LLA), will have his at the Hotel Libertador, located at 690 Córdoba Avenue.

The polls

The polls give a slight advantage to the libertarian candidate, but the final result remains within the margin of error, which is why the party is very cautious and remains very attentive to the inspection process. Roughly 6% of the electorate are undecided, which makes them decisive for the result. Javier Milei will benefit if the level of participation grows, particularly in districts such as Córdoba and Mendoza. On the other hand, Massa needs the level of voters to decrease, which is why he implemented a long weekend to encourage travel and consequently absenteeism.

The result

Tonight, the provisional result from the counting center will be released. Traditionally, this provisional result has been consistent with the definitive one. However, if the candidates are separated by tenths of a percent when 98.5 percent of the votes are counted, the result can be within the margin of error. In that case, the official winner will be declared only after the official count is carried out. The final count begins the Tuesday following the elections and ends five days later on the following Sunday. Consequently, in the case of a close result without a clear winner in the provisional count, the world will have to wait a week to know the result.

Where do candidates vote?

Great expectations are generated in the two voting centers where the contenders will vote. Javier Milei will cast his vote at the National Technological University (UTN), at 951 Medrano Avenue in the City of Buenos Aires, while Sergio Massa will do so in the district of Tigre, at School 34, in Alvear 1430, Province of Buenos Aires.

The youth vote

One of the groups of voters that is most supportive of the libertarian candidate is young people. This Sunday, more than 1 million people aged 16 and 17, representing 3.3% of voters, will be able to vote. There are a total of 1,168,033, almost 47% more than the 2019 national elections. Voters between 18 and 29 years old are 8,337,914, 24.29% of registered voters. The hard core of the libertarian vote is in that age group.

The foreign vote

The two other countries with the largest number of Argentine voters are the United States, where there are 90,382 eligible to vote, and Spain, which has 85,388 eligible voters, mostly in Madrid and Barcelona. Next comes Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay where there are 19,842, 18,149 and 17,963 Argentines authorized to vote, respectively.