The next elections will be in 2028. It is expected, the JCE will soon begin purchasing new technology. A report in Diario Libre looks into the historic practice of mass purchasing of new, expensive equipment for each election. The sad part of the story is much of this equipment has been known not have worked as planned and is then stored away, also at a high cost to the institution.
Diario Libre reports that since 2008, the JCE has spent at least RD$3.45 billion on technology, including computers, printers, scanners, and other devices, for elections. Many of these devices, despite the significant investment, only served a single day’s use before being given away, loaned, or left to deteriorate.
The JCE has held 13 national and international bidding processes to acquire technology for presidential, congressional, and municipal elections over the past 15 years. Immediately following each election, the performance of much of the equipment was questioned. The devices were then either transferred to other government institutions or left unused in JCE storage facilities.
In total, the JCE has acquired at least 148,741 devices. This includes:
• 38,200 computers
• 42,240 printers
• 22,500 portable inverters or UPS
• 1,795 scanners
• 11,000 barcode readers
• 18 servers
• 16 tablets
Additionally, the JCE purchased 16,000 units for vote counting and another 16,000 for voter registration, all of which failed during the 2016 elections and were never used again. According to a December 2017 inventory report from the JCE, 14,669 of the vote-counting units and 16,228 of the voter registration devices remained in storage.
In August 2020, the JCE donated 9,000 HP laptops, originally costing RD$22,195.84 each, to the Ministry of Education. Just three years later, the JCE announced a new bidding process to acquire new laptops valued at around RD$15,390 each.
Diario Libre explains that the JCE has also loaned equipment to other countries for their elections, including Ecuador and Guatemala, along with donating equipment to other public institutions. This practice of purchasing new equipment for each election while giving away or storing old equipment raises questions about the long-term sustainability and fiscal responsibility of the JCE’s technology acquisition strategy.
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Diario Libre
19 August 2025