Colombia’s top electoral official praises the speed of vote counting, as well as the successful implementation of biometric identification, in regional elections on Sunday.
Registrar Carlos Ariel Sanchez told newspaper El Colombiano on Monday there was “a satisfactory assessment” of the “the handing in of results on time” and “the new features that have been implemented have turned out to be successful.”
Digital fingerprint readers were used by three million Colombians to avoid the manipulation of votes in departments at high risk of fraud; Valle del Cauca, Bolivar, Atlantico, Meta, La Guajira, and Cordoba. “This is a system to discourage fraud by the impersonation of voters and election officials,” said Sanchez.
Sanchez’s plan also involved transferring the website of the National Registry to servers in the United States until after the electoral process.
This was to prevent cyber attacks by hackers from the group Anonymous and to ensure that any possible attacks would be investigated by Colombian and U.S. authorities.
Sanchez also organized a web protection system between the Ministry of Defense and the national police and set up 33 information processing centers.
Another measure was to make available a press room specially equipped to receive voting results announced by counting transmission centers in a every region.
In an interview with newspaper El Tiempo, Sanchez said that the principal irregularities during the elections were the buying of votes and campaigning near polling stations.
Ballot counting for Colombia’s local and regional elections will continue from 9AM Monday until finished said the National Electoral Council‘s President Joaquin JoseVives.