Insular Council Election 2007
Curaçao

Audits

1. Nine days before Election Day, the first electoral simulation was held in the offices of the Electoral Council in order to check all Smartmatic technology components and services which were to be deployed in the election. For this demonstration, 2 voting machines were programmed with data similar to that which would be used in the real election. The machines were tested by authorized personnel who simulated a process of voting, tallying and post-count auditing.

2. Once the production and preparation process for the 159 machines concluded, the Electoral Council randomly selected 5 machines for a full, end-to-end audit, following the same procedure which would take place on the day of the election. For this evaluation, official data were used in the equipment configuration, so that the auditors could examine the whole technological platform according to the same conditions that would apply on Election Day, April 20th, 2007. 

The five machines were evaluated under three different patterns:
a. Maximum number of votes allowed per machine (according to official figures of citizens inscribed and allowed votes).
b. At least a vote for each available option, plus at least one blank vote for each machine. The Electoral Council validated that all of the available options matched the design of the electoral ballots.
c. Free vote: it was proven that different voting options, randomly made until they covered each and every possible option, were successfully made.

The registry of all the votes was validated and filed in preparation for the post-tally evaluation of the transmission and counting process. Additionally, tests were performed to check the replacement of removable memory, the replacement of machines in the event of a malfunction and the contingency plan in case of an electrical failure. All of these produced satisfactory results within the expected time.