The credibility of the Central Electoral Board (JCE) continues to be challenged. On Monday, 14 October 2019, former President Leonel Fernandez shared more details on the suspect tampering with the automated voting system and the vulnerabilities of the system. The JCE had said the 6 October primary would serve to test the computerized voting system in time for the 2020 municipal, congressional and presidential election. The response of the JCE to challenge of fraud was to carry out a manual vote count that coincided with the automated vote with a difference of four votes and confirmed the victory of government-backed Gonzalo Castillo. The JCE, then on Tuesday, 15 October, would announce an international firm would be hired to carry out a forensic technical audit of the system.
Former President Leonel Fernández had demanded a technical forensic audit of the 6 October vote and transmission of results. On the morning of Monday 14 October 2019, Fernández, wearing a purple cap reading Bosch (the founder of the PLD party was Juan Bosch), spoke out to say he would continue to demand a technical forensic audit to the PLD primary through legal methods and international channels. “I am not here to demand that my win be recognized. I am here to defend democracy in the Dominican Republic.”
Previously, at 7am on the same Monday morning, Fernández delivered a speech sharing new evidence his followers had found from the review of the data on the election transmitted on 6 October 2019. He said IT technicians had detected manipulation of the data from 875 voting tables. He revealed a long series of attempts at fraud, starting in July of this year when a fire affected the installations of the JCE. Fernandez said the fire was a cover-up to gain access to the voting machines and set up what was necessary to intercept the data.
He said that he had proof of the altering of the results that were transmitted by the JCE from the voting centers. He said that the hacking attacks were launched from a hotel in Punta Cana, a villa in Casa de Campo and Santo Domingo, near the location of the offices of one of the companies owned by today PLD presidential candidate Gonzalo Castillo at the junction of Abraham Lincoln and José Amado Soler.
In an interview on La Super 7 radio talk show La Cuestion with Diana Lora and Patricia Solano, technical specialist Cesar Fernández of the Leonel Fernández team said that a wide diversity of fraud methods were used to manipulate information, but these were initially not enough for a Castillo win. The IT specialist said the supporters of Castillo were obliged to resort to use the direct transmission of votes to generate the needed votes for the Castillo win. He said after the vote close at 4pm, in southern voting tables votes were irregularly registered electronically every 50 seconds. The IT technician says that if the vulnerabilities of the system are not resolved now, the powers that be will impose their candidates in the 2020 general election.
The JCE has reported a win for government-backed Gonzalo Castillo with 911,324 votes or 48.72% to 884,630 votes of Leonel Fernandez with 47.29%.
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15 October 2019