Voting-rights profile

Bolivia

South America · bo

A plurinational presidential republic in which the president and vice-president are elected together for five years, winning outright with more than 50% of valid votes or with at least 40% and a lead of ten percentage points over the runner-up, and otherwise going to a runoff. The 130-seat Chamber of Deputies combines single-member districts, party lists allocated proportionally by department, and seven seats reserved for indigenous peoples in special constituencies; each of the nine departments elects four senators, for a Senate of 36.

Profile last reviewed August 29, 2026

Bolivia has one of the most recently and most abruptly widened electorates in the Americas. Until 1952 the national vote was confined to men who could read and write and held property or independent income - women had been admitted only to municipal elections, in 1945 - and just 204,649 people, 6.78% of the population, were eligible in 1951; a single decree in 1952 enfranchised the indigenous and rural majority and multiplied the electorate roughly fivefold by the 1956 election. Voting today is compulsory, in person and on paper, on a biometric register that has been continuously maintained since 2009, and turnout is habitually near 88%. Elections are run by the Plurinational Electoral Organ, a body the 2009 Constitution treats as a branch of the state in its own right, and results are published down to individual polling stations together with scans of the original tally sheets. The country has no ballot recount procedure, so those tally sheets are the only record from which a disputed count can be reconstructed - a limitation that shaped the whole dispute over the annulled election of October 2019.

How voting works today

Voting age: 18 and over
Voter registration: Mixed
Compulsory voting: Yes
Postal voting: Not available
Early voting: Not available
Online voting: Not available
Voting from abroad: Restricted

Voting is obligatory for all citizens aged 18 and over, with exemptions for those aged 70 or more and for citizens abroad on election day. For 90 days after an election a citizen who cannot show a voting certificate or proof of paying the fine may not take public office, carry out bank transactions or obtain a passport; the fine in 2020 was set at 10% of the minimum salary. The register has been biometric and permanently updated since 2009: citizens enrol in person, but the tribunal also runs registration drives, cross-checks deaths against the civil registry and other authorities, and suspends entries for citizens who missed the two previous national votes. Voting is in person on paper on a single day; the Carter Center's report on the 2020 election describes no postal, early or internet channel. Out-of-country voting is also in person, at centres organised in the countries where Bolivia has diplomatic or consular representation; in 2020 Bolivians voted from 70 cities in 29 countries, with 301,631 voters registered abroad, Panama and five cities in northern Chile being excluded because of COVID-19 movement restrictions.

How the franchise changed

Every entry records a change in who could vote, or how — expansions, restrictions and procedural reforms alike.

1945Expansion
Women were admitted to the franchise for the first time, but only in municipal elections.
El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
1952Expansion
The universal suffrage decree of 21 July 1952 gave the vote to all Bolivian men and women aged 21, or 18 if married, removing the literacy, occupation and income requirements that had left only 204,649 people, 6.78% of the population, eligible in 1951.
El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
1956Expansion
The general election of 17 June 1956 was the first held under universal suffrage, with 1,119,047 voters eligible, roughly five times the 1951 figure.
El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
1961Reform
Universal suffrage, until then resting on the 1952 decree alone, was written into the constitution: the 1961 reform extended citizenship to all Bolivians over 21 whatever their level of education, occupation or income.
El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
1967Restriction
The 1967 constitution made literacy a condition of eligibility to stand for office, so that citizens who could not read or write could vote but could not be elected.
El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
1994Expansion
The 1994 constitutional reform definitively removed the literacy requirement for candidates reintroduced in 1967.
El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
2009Expansion
Voting from abroad began: the external electoral register was opened in 2009.
El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
2009Expansion
The Transitional Electoral Regime of 2009 (Law 4021) reserved seven of the 130 Chamber of Deputies seats for indigenous peoples, in special constituencies drawn in seven of the nine departments.
Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Chamber of Deputies - Parline country record
2017Reform
In judgment 0084/2017 the Plurinational Constitutional Court held that Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights applied in preference to Article 168 of the constitution, setting aside the two-term limit that voters had declined to lift in the referendum of 21 February 2016, in which No prevailed with 51.30% (2,682,517 votes) against 48.70% (2,546,135).
La reeleccion indefinida en Bolivia - un analisis juridico
2019Reform
Law 1266 of 24 November 2019 left the general election of 20 October and its results without legal effect, ended the terms of the sitting Supreme Electoral Tribunal members and ordered a re-run within 120 days of a new convocation.
Ley 1266 de 24 de noviembre de 2019, Ley de Regimen Excepcional y Transitorio para la Realizacion de Elecciones Generales

Safeguards on the count

Ballot type: Paper ballots
Post-election audit: No routine audit
Election administration: Independent commission
Domestic observers: Yes
International observers: Yes

Elections are administered by the Plurinational Electoral Organ, whose Supreme Electoral Tribunal and nine departmental tribunals aggregate the count from the original paper tally sheets in the presence of party agents and observers. Verification is documentary rather than a recount: the results website publishes totals down to polling-station level alongside a high-quality scan of each original tally sheet, so parties and citizens can compare their copy against the published data, but Bolivian procedure provides no recount of ballots, which is why the OAS audit described the tally sheet as the only document from which the vote can be reconstructed. Accreditation for national and international observation is provided for by tribunal regulation and used at scale: the domestic networks Observa Bolivia and Observacion Ciudadana de la Democracia deployed more than 2,000 and 180 observers respectively in 2020. A separate preliminary results system, the TREP, has no legal standing; after its failure in 2019 the Carter Center recommended abandoning it.

Worth knowing

The 1952 decree remade the electorate in four years: 204,649 people were eligible to vote in 1951 and 1,119,047 in the election of 1956.El voto universal, uno de los hitos en la conquista del derecho politico en 200 anos de vida independiente de Bolivia
A Bolivian presidential ticket can win outright without a majority, on 40% of valid votes plus a ten-point lead. The entire dispute over the 2019 election turned on whether that gap had been reached: the declared margin was 10.57 points.Electoral Integrity Analysis, General Elections in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, October 20, 2019 - Final Report
Turnout is consistently among the highest in the Americas: 88.3% in the annulled election of October 2019, on a register of 7,315,364 voters, of whom 6,460,515 voted.Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Chamber of Deputies, October 2019 election results
Turnout at the October 2020 re-run, held after the 2019 election was annulled, was 88.42% including out-of-country voting, and the official aggregation of the paper count took a record five days.Analyzing Bolivia's 2020 General Elections - Final Report
The Carter Center recorded that the legislature elected in 2020 reached gender parity, with 20 women among the 36 senators (55.6%) and 62 women among the 130 deputies (47.7%), and that for the first time since the requirement became law every political organisation presented gender-balanced candidate lists. The Inter-Parliamentary Union records 60 women deputies for the same legislature.Analyzing Bolivia's 2020 General Elections - Final Report