One of the present five members of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), Carmen Imbert Brugal said on 5 October 2020 at the Senate that she and other members of the plenary were surprised when the president of JCE announced the suspending of the municipal election on 16 February 2020. Imbert Brugal was interviewed by the Senate committee that is assessing candidates for the five full members and the five alternates at the JCE. Imbert Brugal seeks to continue at the JCE.
“The plenary was not aware of the problems with difficulties in the automated voting system,” she said. The election was canceled at 11am on the municipal election day (16 February 2020) after the system failed to upload opposition parties’ ballots. Imbert Brugal said that the observer mission of the Organization of American States and the technicians of the JCE knew about the problems on the day before. Imbert Brugal blamed the “self-sufficiency and the arrogance” [of the president of the JCE] for taking the risk to go ahead with the election despite being aware of the system problems.
She explained that on election day, she was in Santiago monitoring different municipalities where the vote was taking place successfully when the election was suspended.
She said the cancellation had to be voted on three times by the political delegates of the parties.
Imbert Brugal says that the members of the JCE each had specific duties. She called the Senate committee to assess her work focusing on the duties she was assigned.
A OAS investigative commission was called in and determined that the electronic glitch that caused the cancelation of the election was due to the mismanagement by the JCE.
In a parallel development, an opposition was placed in the Senate to the aspirations for continuing or returning to the JCE of present judges Rosario Graciano, and past members Eddy Olivares and Jose Angel Aquino. Carmen Imbert Brugal was not objected to by lawyer Lorenzo Emeterio Rondón who in 2016 sought to be elected deputy for the then ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
Follow the story:
El Caribe
Hoy – 1:11:45
6 October 2020