[15] In the hours following the suspension and for several days after February 16, thousands of Dominicans took to the streets to demand the resignation of the Central Electoral Board.
This means all votes cast for mayor, for each of the councilors, and for each party/alliance will be added using open list proportional representation and the D'Hondt method.
Although polling places were scheduled to open nationwide at 7 am, delays began to be reported which led the president of the Central Election Board, Julio César Castaños Guzmán, to ask that citizens “have patience” as he indicated during a press conference at the board's headquarters that some “polling places may experience delays” in starting the electoral process.
[27] At 11:11 am, Castaños Guzmán called for a second press conference to announce that elections would be suspended nationwide due to the widespread failure of the electronic voting system.
He said that elections could not continue because the electoral ballot did not load properly in a majority of polling places in which the automated voting system was being used.
The issues were communicated to the Organization of American States, who was participating in the elections as part of a group of international observers, and to delegates from all political parties.
[3][18] Some of the main issues raised by the protesters were the perceived collaboration between the electoral board and the current government, the use of national funds for the benefit of politicians and their families, and a generalized frustration with political corruption and impunity.
[32] Also at issue was the lack of information provided by the Central Electoral Board about the failures and a concern that the incident would not be investigated fully.
Military agents were deployed to the area to support the National Police and on Tuesday evening, tear gas devices were detonated against the crowd.
[34][35] Although the country's security forces were quick to distance themselves from the incident, the Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Ruben Paulio Sem, later confirmed that the tear gas devices were launched by a rogue military agent and were not authorized, as the protest had been organized and peaceful, there was no threatening activity, and the situation did not call for such a response.
On February 25, reports surfaced of protest repression, as pedestrians and cyclists carrying placards or wearing black clothes were prohibited from transiting freely on the street.
[38] After the suspension of the elections, the Central Electoral Board asked outside organizations to audit the voting system and an investigation is in process.
[39] On February 19, 2020, National Police spokesman Frank Félix Durán Mejía said that two individuals, police Col. Ramón Antonio Guzmán Peralta, who had been assigned as security detail to the presidential candidate of one of the opposition parties, Luis Abinader, and Manuel Antonio Regalado, a technician for the Claro telecommunications company, were detained for trying to sabotage the elections.
On December 16, the Superior Electoral Court (Spanish: Tribunal Superior Electoral, TSE) presented a formula and urged that it be the basis as an example of how the woman's quota should be applied fairly, this formula was submitted on the occasion of rejecting the action initiated by Niurka M. Reyes Guzmán (PRM - El Seibo), a former pre-candidate for a deputy, the court understood that her fundamental rights had not been violated because in her demarcation there was only one position submitted to popular election during the primaries.