Marta Lagos, executive director of Latinobarometro, the firm hired by the Central Electoral Board (JCE) to audit the electoral roll to be used in the 15 May 2016 general elections, said it was one of the best in Latin America and the world. She said that the Dominican electoral roll was comparable to that of the Netherlands, which she described as the best in the world. The audit confirmed that 70% of the people who participated in the study live in the place where they are registered to vote. A Chilean, Lagos said that in her country barely 10% of people contacted in a similar test run actually lived in the place where they are registered to vote. She said that the problem here is not the voters’ list but the way addresses are referenced. She said it is difficult to find an address because people will often give their houses random numbers. She said they found that 30% of those contacted did not want to show their IDs, so it was not possible to establish whether they were on the voters’ list. The test was applied to a sample of 1,000 citizens nationwide.
Latinobarometro recommended limiting ID validity to five years, and to implement mechanisms to cancel the IDs belonging to people who have died but are still on the voters’ list.
http://www.elcaribe.com.do/2016/05/03/latinobarometro-dice-que-padron-dominicano-ldquocasi-perfectordquo
