Venezuela election 2024 live updates: Polls open across the country

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ, REGINA GARCÍA CANO

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In the working class Petare neighborhood on the east side of Caracas, people lined up to vote hours before polls opened.

Judith Cantilla, a 52-year-old domestic worker said, “In the name of God, everything is going to turn out alright. Each person is going take their position and well, (it’s time for) change for Venezuela.”

“We’re tired,” she said. “For me change in Venezuela (is) that there are jobs, that there’s security, there’s medicine in the hospitals; good pay for the teachers, for the doctors.”

Elsewhere, Liana Ibarra, a manicurist in greater Caracas, got in line at 3 a.m. Sunday and found at least 150 people ahead of her.

“My aunt wrote to me from the United States at 2 a.m. to ask me if I was already in line,” Ibarra, 35, said next to her backpack where she had water, coffee and cassava snacks. “There used to be a lot of indifference toward elections, but not anymore.”

Her mom’s 11 siblings have all migrated. She has not followed them, she said, because her 5-year-old son has special needs. But if González does not win, she will ask her relatives to sponsor her and her son’s application to migrate to the U.S. legally.

“We can’t take it anymore,” she said.