The managerial and technical weaknesses that have affected the organization of the 2000 presidential election for the past two years are making headlines again. Thousands of persons had to go home empty-handed when the Junta Central Electoral, the board in charge of organizing the presidential election, was not able to deliver on promises of having the capacity of issuing the thousands of voting cards that are still pending. The problems mostly affect thousands of persons that requested their document in the early days of the process, before several of the informatics bugs were fixed. Several of these persons have been requesting the cards for a year now. Hoy newspaper reported that even the delegate of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano expressed concern regarding the confusing situation and the displeasure of citizens who made trips to get their cards and had to return home empty-handed. The PRD-majority Congress handpicked the new board that has been criticized for managerial and technical incapacity. According to statistics provided by the JCE, almost one million persons have yet to get their cedulas. The JCE say they have capacity to issue 50,000 cards a day, but yesterday, only 5,000 were issued according to news reports, primarily due to technical problems. The official stats indicate that as of 5 February, 4,405,272 persons have applied for the card, and 3,417,877 cards have been issued.
