Since beginning to automate its elections in 2004, Venezuela has now what is probably the most auditable, transparent and accurate voting systems in the world. It was put into action once again on 8 December, this time to help Venezuelans choose:
- 355 municipal mayors
- The Caracas metropolitan mayor
- The district mayor for Alto Apure
- 1,680 nominal councilmen (selected individually by their names)
- 686 list councilmen (selected by voting for a given political party)
- 20 district councilmen
In total, voters filled 2,792 public offices from a pool of 16,880 candidates.
Our voting platform fully automated every step, from the biometric authentication of voters to the broadcast of official results.
Scope
- 39,427 voting machines, plus 7,431 replacement machines, distributed throughout 13,651 polling centres
- 39,427 polling stations throughout 13,651 polling centres, 1,262 of which were in rural zones and inhospitable/hard to reach locations
- The electoral registry was comprised of 19,066,431 voters, 18,851,307 of whom were Venezuelan and 215,124 were foreigners who had resided in the country for over ten years and were registered to vote
- 77,986 system operators performed jobs such as system configuration and priming, tech support and tallying
- 48,340 pieces of electoral equipment, including the voting machines and their replacements and laptops
- The states with the largest number of polling centres and stations were: Zulia, with 1,215 centres and 4,680 stations; Miranda, 1,039 centres and 3,936 stations; and Lara, with 990 centres and 2,546 stations
Technology
Software
Electoral Operation System (EOS) is an application designed for the follow-up and management of all logistic and operational processes involved in both the preparation and conduction of the election.
This system facilitates communications between operators and field personnel, and offers a detailed, real-time vision of all the events taking place during Election Day.
Electoral Management System (EMS) is an application used to generate all the instruments necessary for an election, from the enrolment of candidates to voter registration and ballot art design.
Real-time Electoral Information System (REIS) takes care of tasks related to electoral results, such as consolidation and broadcasting.
Hardware
4000 series (SAES-4000, SAES-4200 and SAES-4300) voting machines
These machines feature touch screens and an easy-to-use interface that are able to capture voter intent perfectly and securely record transmit that choice behind 256-bit encryption.
They feature built-in printers to print receipts and vote tallies, making them 100% auditable. They also have a special module designed for people with disabilities so they can exercise their right to vote.
VIU-100
Our tool to biometrically authenticate voters, eliminate voter impersonation and guarantee the “one voter=one vote principle”
VP-1500 e-ballot
Our e-ballot, or electronic voting pad, made it easy for voters to mark their preferences, while guaranteeing total exactness in the capture of their votes.
Services
We didn’t just deploy the world’s most advanced and successful voting hardware and software. We also provided the following services to ensure a flawless election:
- Providing crucial project management services, perfected over 3,500 elections
- Selection, hiring and training of field personnel: Including voting machine operators, support technicians, information station operators, emergency transmission centre operators, tallying technicians, special operators, and National Support Centre operators, National Support Centre (CNS) staff, Regional Support Centres (CAR), regional coordinators and personnel for the pre- and post-event audits
- Operating the National Support Centre, which was in charge of tech support for all the various components involved in the process, guaranteeing the project’s fluid, proper execution
- Operating the Quick Response Centres, in charge of logistical support in every region of the country. These centres verified the deployment and recovery of voting equipment, as well as their status; all field operators were monitored and reports were kept over the assistance provided; the process’ advance was tracked by means of the EOS system, and emergency plans were activated whenever necessary
- Preparing and distributing some 47,000 voting machines, training their operators, informing the electorate, carrying out engineering tests and the election proper
- Executing an engineering test
- Installing Contingency Transmission Centres
- Delivering supplies for the voting machines and other necessary supplies/equipment
- Providing and distributing batteries as backup energy sources
- Printing guides, manuals and protocols for the field personnel
- Controlling and tracking operation indicators
Audits
1. Engineering test, 15 September
Checks operative readiness and fault tolerance of the results transmission platform.
2. Audit of the biometric system, 14-18 October
Tests that there is no relation between the order in which the voters’ fingerprints are taken and the sequence their votes are stored, thus guaranteeing the constitutional mandate for the secrecy of the vote.
3. Audit of the voting machine software, 14-18 October
Verifies that the software running on the voting machine correctly performed vote casting, tallying and transmission.
4. Voting simulation, 20 October
Nationwide test of all of the system’s technological and logistical elements, as they’d be used on Election Day.
5. Audit of the tallying software, 26 October – 1 December
Audits the source code of the software running on the tallying centre servers. Important because this is where results are tallied, winners are decided and where final results are generated.
6. Audit of the voting machine assembly process, 29 October – 30 November
Verifies that the code previously certified during the software audit is the same code being installed on the machines. Also checks the machines operated as defined. This involves the random selection of a number of voting machines (pre-selected by the political parties) before performing a voting simulation on them in order to check their proper operation.
7. Audit of the voting infrastructure, 27-29 November
Checks the voting machines technological platform and structure. A machine is disassembled in the presence of political party representatives, so they can verify that every one of its component is necessary for the election, and that there are no secondary or extraneous elements that could perform actions unrelated to (or not in conformity with) the voting process.
8. Pre-dispatch audit, 1 December
Complete test of the voting process, including voting, data transmission, tallying, and a final audit using the vouchers in the ballot boxes. All this takes place in the presence of political party representatives.
9. Pre-electoral telecommunications audit, 6 December
Demonstrates that the networks used to transmit the results on Election Day function properly (this is a private network used only for the election, completely isolated from the Internet).
10. Citizen verification, phase I, 8 December
After polls closed, citizens compare voting vouchers against precinct counts printed by the machines, to guarantee the will of the voters was correctly represented. Based on a random sample of over 50% of the voting machines.
11. Post-electoral telecommunications audit, 9 December
Verifies that the telecommunications network used has the same configuration as before the election, to show no changes were made to it during the voting process.
12. Audit of the electoral results transmission, 7-9 December
Technicians from the political parties check the whole voting infrastructure (servers and communication components), hosted in the data centres used for vote tallying.
13. Citizen verification, phase II, 13 December
Technicians from the National Electoral Council and the political parties verify that the voters’ choices, reflected on the voting vouchers, match the precinct counts in data centres used for vote tallying, after data transmission on Election Day. Performed on 1% of the polling centres, randomly selected.