The Central Electoral Board (JCE) is continuing its efforts to modernize the Dominican electoral process by signing contracts with three companies who will provide the platforms for electronic voting in the near future. With an investment of close to US$63 million and a deadline of November 2005, the Dominican-Puerto Rican-Brazilian consortium will provide the means to vote electronically in the next municipal and congressional elections in May 2006. According to Judge Rafaelina Peralta, a member of the JCE, the idea is to use the new machines in the party primaries as a sort of trial run for the municipal and congressional elections. Computers will carry a running count of the votes as they are cast. According to the report in the Listin Diario, there will be 12,000 computers used in the elections of 2006, one for each polling station across the country. The new system also envisions an accurate list of voters, as well as up to date birth and death records. The Dominican company is the Engineer’s Society of the Caribbean, as headed by Daniel Saba Bodden, to work in conjunction with Samurai of Brazil, as headed by Carolos Rocha, and Softec from Puerto Rico, as headed by Julian Logrono. With the technology in place, the personal identity card called the “cedula,” which is assigned to every person living in the Dominican Republic, will carry a direct link to the birth certificate and the fingerprints of the individual. This modality is designed to eliminate any mistakes at voting time.