Central Electoral Board (JCE) president Julio Castaños Guzmán said the IT department will be restructured following recommendations made by the Organization of American States (OAS) technical mission. Castaños announced the firing of IT director, Miguel Angel García, who had been suspended.
The plenary of the JCE did not assume responsibility for the municipal election’s failure scheduled for 16 February. Castaños was the strongest supporter of the automated voting system and rejected on several occasions proposals of an audit of the system and testing of it proposed by the civic watchdog group, Participación Ciudadana.
The OAS mission investigated the reasons for the e-voting glitch that caused the municipal election to be cancelled. Castaños Guzmán said the computers purchased for the elections would be distributed to JCE offices nationwide. The computers were purchased at a cost of RD$1 billion. Estimates are that the failed election cost taxpayers around RD$5 billion.
Speaking for the People’s Force that proposes Leonel Fernández for President, Manuel Crespo said the vulnerabilities mentioned in the report had been presented in reports to the JCE since last year.
Orlando Jorge Mera, political delegate of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) to the JCE, said what is necessary now is for the electoral body to purge its Internet Technology and Elections departments, working in unison with the political parties.
Danilo Díaz, delegate for the PLD to the JCE, said the party understands the report cleared the political parties of responsibility. He said the next step is for the JCE to take the measures to guarantee that the presidential and congressional election “be a transparent process and they should be.”
Alianza País candidate for deputy Pedro Calderón Prieto questioned the intent of the report, observing it could serve as an image wash to evade political responsibilities. Calderón said it is untimely and dangerous to discard the notion that there was an attempt at electoral fraud in the municipal election. He said it is not up to an international body to determine if there was fraud or not and expects Dominican justice to rule on the matter. He said political responsibilities should be established.
Spokesmen for the Christian Social Reformist Party (PRSC) maintain that the electoral body issued a complacent report and therefore both the JCE and the DPLD “appear to be celebrating.”
A technical evaluation carried out by the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (Uniore) attributes responsibility to the plenary of the JCE, as reported in Diario Libre. It states that it is incorrect to exclusively blame the technical staff for the failure of the system.
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16 April 2020