The delegates of the PLD were unaware the JCE had changed its supplier of the plastic material used to impede tampering with the voting certificates, as reported in El Caribe. Danilo Diaz and Fernando Fernandez of the PLD, and Sergia Elena de Seliman for the PRSC said they were uninformed of the change. Luis Arias, as president of the JCE, sent the press to seek an answer from the Administrative Chamber. But Judge Rafael Diaz Vasquez sent the press to talk with Gilberto Cruz Herasme, director of elections, who he said had chosen the new material.
The PLD and PRSC delegates had approved the purchase of 330,000 plastic auto-adhesive sheets from 3M after attending a presentation of this material. The JCE, however, unilaterally changed the material, without notifying the delegates.
An unknown distributor named Marino?s has reportedly received the half million-dollar contract for the supplies. If the company does not come through, it would be penalized with a US$2,000 per day fine. The JCE authorized an advance payment to this unknown company of 75% of the cost of the sheets upfront.
The decision to laminate the voting certificates was reached after the last congressional elections, during which several of the official documents were altered after they left the polling stations. The practice became known as the ?palito? affair, where 11 votes, for instance, became 111.