Puerto Rico, San Juan – April 30, 2015 – Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, a renowned authority in international affairs and Chairman of the world leader in election automation Smartmatic, presented the credentials of the multinational company in Puerto Rico and highlighted the benefits that technology offers to election management.
“There is nothing more powerful in a country than voting. Transparent elections, with quick and precise results, have a direct link to a country’s economic development. A reliable voting process grants legitimacy to the elected representatives and is a fundamental tool in the strengthening of democracy”, said Malloch-Brown, an expert in foreign affairs and a consultant on economic development matters.
Smartmatic is the election automation company with the greatest experience in the industry. It has participated in some 3,500 elections and deployed technology and services in five of the seven countries that lead the way in automated voting practices.
Malloch-Brown, who was second in charge in the UN when Kofi Annan led the institution, was accompanied by Robert Cook, Global Sales President for Smartmatic. During their visit, they presented a technology that has guaranteed efficient and transparent elections in several countries in the globe.
As part of their presentation, both Lord Malloch-Brown and Cook explained that one of Smartmatic’s key advantages is being the only election technology company that allows several audits before and after every election. To guarantee flawless processes, quality tests, voting simulations, engineering tests and audits are performed on every component of the system. “These revisions are fundamental, especially in countries which are automating their election processes for the first time. We put stress on these audits because they generate trust in the results; greater transparency means greater credibility.”
According to Smartmatic’s Chairman, who lent his services to the Cabinet of the United Kingdom and is now a member of the House of Lords, Puerto Rico is one of the strongest democracies in the Caribbean and stands out as one of the countries with the highest voter turnout.
As part of the presentation, there was a demo of the optical scanner machines Smartmatic is offering as in their proposal. “With our experience of having counted over 1.5 billion votes with optical scanners, we guarantee the upmost security and transparency in the delivery of results on the very same day of the election”, Cook stated.
Lord Malloch-Brown mentioned that the company’s work has been recognized by the most serious election organizations in the planet, like the Interamerican Union of Election Bodies, the Carter Center, the Union of South American Nations and the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
