Peru opens probe after transport failure left tens of thousands without ballots in Lima

At the glass-fronted headquarters of Peru’s election authority in Lima, anti-corruption police and prosecutors filed in on Sunday, not long after thousands of would-be voters discovered their polling tables had never opened.

The unannounced visit to the National Office of Electoral Processes, known by its Spanish initials ONPE, came as authorities scrambled to explain why election materials never reached dozens of polling sites in the capital during Peru’s general elections.

By midday, ONPE acknowledged a serious breakdown: ballots and other materials had not arrived at 211 polling tables across 15 polling locations in Lima, preventing about 63,300 registered voters from casting their ballots on Sunday. The authority blamed a private transport company and said it would pursue legal and criminal action against the firm.

The disruptions struck in a high-stakes vote to choose a president and a new bicameral Congress, in a country that has cycled through multiple leaders in recent years and where confidence in political institutions is fragile.

Election-day inspections, not raids

The on-site actions were led by the Cuarta Fiscalía de Prevención del Delito de Lima Centro, a unit of the public prosecutor’s office that focuses on preventing crimes, with support from the National Police’s anti-corruption directorate, known as Dircocor. Local media identified prosecutor Lorena Villanueva Zúñiga as leading the diligence at ONPE’s headquarters.

Prosecutors described the operations as “diligencias,” a term used in Peruvian law for investigative steps such as gathering documents or information. At ONPE, authorities carried out these diligences and collected information related to the delays.

A separate team of prosecutors and Dircocor officers went to the registered address of Servicios Generales Galaga S.A.C., the private company that had been contracted to transport electoral materials in Lima and the neighboring port region of Callao. That location, in the district of San Juan de Lurigancho, was closed when they arrived. Officials drew up an acta, a formal record of their visit, and left.

There have been no reports that police forced entry into either ONPE or Galaga premises, seized documents, or made arrests during Sunday’s actions. Authorities and major news outlets have consistently referred to the steps as inspections and diligences, rather than raids.

ONPE apologizes and blames contractor

The logistical failure forced ONPE into an unusual public mea culpa on election day.

In a midday statement on Sunday, the authority acknowledged that materials had failed to reach some polling locations in Lima and asked the National Jury of Elections (JNE), the body that oversees electoral justice, for more time to set up tables and keep voting centers open.

“ONPE expresses its most sincere apologies for the inconvenience this problem has caused,” the office said in Spanish: “La ONPE expresa sus más sinceras disculpas por los inconvenientes que este problema ha ocasionado…”

The JNE agreed to ONPE’s request to extend the deadline for installing polling tables nationwide until 2 p.m. and to keep voting centers open until 6 p.m. Even with the extra hours, many voters at the affected sites in Lima were unable to vote on Sunday because their tables never opened.

Later in the day, electoral authorities announced that some polling locations would reopen or extend hours into Monday for those left out. One international news agency reported that “more than 52,000” residents of Lima would be allowed to vote on Monday, a figure lower than ONPE’s initial estimate of 63,300 affected voters and likely reflecting who could practically take advantage of the Monday extension.

ONPE explicitly named Servicios Generales Galaga as the company responsible for transporting materials in Lima and Callao and said the firm had failed to provide the agreed number of vehicles, causing the delays. The authority said it would initiate legal and criminal proceedings against the company.

JNE President Roberto Burneo signaled that electoral authorities would seek to hold both private and public actors accountable.

“We will seek sanctions, not only at the administrative level but also criminal, as corresponds, and that those responsible face the full weight of the law,” he said in Spanish: “Buscaremos las sanciones, no solamente a nivel administrativo sino penal, como corresponde, y que a los responsables les caiga todo el peso de la ley.”

A troubled contractor at the center

Servicios Generales Galaga was not a new player in Peru’s election logistics.

Investigative outlets and national broadcasters, citing public contracting and tax records, have reported that Galaga previously held ONPE transport contracts and was penalized in 2020 and 2023 for earlier delivery failures. Those sanctions did not bar the company from winning new public contracts.

This year, ONPE awarded Galaga the job of distributing electoral materials across the dense and politically crucial Lima and Callao areas. Local reporting indicates that in the week before the election, Galaga sought urgently to hire additional trucks, suggesting it may have been struggling to meet its obligations.

The company has not publicly detailed what went wrong on Sunday. ONPE has not yet fully explained how it assessed Galaga’s past performance when awarding the contract or what backup plans it had in place if a contractor fell short.

Those questions are now central to the investigations opened by prosecutors and to a broader debate about how Peru manages critical election logistics.

A small percentage, a large number of voters

Nationally, ONPE has emphasized that the vast majority of voting proceeded as planned. The authority reported that about 99.8% of roughly 92,012 polling tables were installed across the country, meaning only about 0.2% failed to open.

But the concentration of problems in the capital means the impact is politically sensitive. The roughly 63,300 affected voters represent a fraction of the national electorate of more than 27 million, yet they are clustered in districts around Lima that are central to shaping perceptions of the vote’s legitimacy.

The logistical operation in Lima and Callao was also unusually large. ONPE has said it used 434 vehicles in this election in the metropolitan area, compared with about 200 in 2021, reflecting an increase of some 10,000 polling tables nationwide and a more complex deployment.

Administrative failure or crime?

The public prosecutor’s office is now examining whether the delays point to criminal behavior, such as corruption or intentional obstruction of the vote, or whether they amount to severe but ultimately administrative failings by a contractor and possibly by electoral officials.

Legal experts quoted in local media have cautioned that not every irregularity is a crime. Peruvian legal scholar Ana Neyra, for example, underlined that criminal charges require proof of intent.

“For a crime to be constituted there has to be the intention to commit it, which is different from an administrative irregularity,” she said: “Para que se configure un delito tiene que existir la intención de cometerlo, lo cual es distinto a una irregularidad administrativa.”

The diligences at ONPE and at Galaga’s address are aimed at reconstructing what happened in the days and hours leading up to Sunday’s failure: what communications took place between the company and electoral officials, what contingency plans were considered, and why they were not enough to prevent or quickly fix the disruption.

Written records of those diligences, along with ONPE’s formal complaint against Galaga and the company’s contract file, are expected to play a key role in determining whether anyone faces criminal charges.

Confidence on the line

Peru has seen repeated political crises and presidential turnover since 2018, and recent elections have been contested and polarized. Against that backdrop, a conspicuous logistics failure that temporarily disenfranchised tens of thousands in the capital carries risks beyond the technical questions of truck routes and delivery schedules.

Candidates or factions dissatisfied with the outcome could seize on the delays to cast doubt on the overall results, even if the number of affected voters is small in national terms and some are ultimately able to vote on Monday.

For now, electoral authorities are racing on two tracks: to ensure that as many of the affected voters as possible get to cast a ballot, and to show that the state can swiftly investigate and, if necessary, punish those responsible for a breakdown that unfolded at the heart of Peruvian democracy.