Smartmatic has provided election technology and services to the Superior Elections
Tribunal for three national elections (2012, 2014, and 2016)
To guarantee success, it has partnered with local firms Engetec and Fixti, forming three consortia, Engematic, ESF and Smartitec. The combined experience of these successful companies has provided TSE with reliable services and project management teams.
Scope
Our participation in Brazil can be divided into two kinds of solutions: data and voice communication for the most isolated polling places; and election support services.
Data and voice communications support
During three consecutive national elections -2012, 2014 and 2016-, Smartmatic configured and deployed Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) satellite devices to support the data and voice communications from some of Brazil’s most isolated areas. This allowed timely data transmission and results delivery in near real-time.
Services rendered included:
- Configuration of BGAN SABRE satellite terminals with data and voice communications.
- Distribution and deployment of the BGAN SABRE satellite terminals in the capitals of 16 Brazilian states for further distribution to the remote polling places (see table 1).
- Technical education of TSE trainers.
- Printed manuals to operate devices.
- Maintenance of the equipment.
- Creation of a Call Center via an “800” number, to be open 24/7 while the SMS at equipment were in use.
- Post-election unit retrieval.
Election support services
In 2012, TSE contracted the ESF Consortium’s (formed by Smartmatic, Engetec and Fixti) services to provide elections support and battery maintenance to the voting machines. 13,500 technicians were hired and trained to work across the 5,568 municipalities of Brazil with over 500,000 pieces of election equipment. The technicians performed the following services:
- Keeping the internal and backup batteries of the voting machines charged.
- Cleaning, removing seals, functional testing, screening for corrective maintenance and preparation for storage of the machines.
- Testing of all electronic components of the voting machines.
- Perform non-election period support.
The ESF Consortium was also in charge of receiving and transmitting media reports of the voting system.
As part of the staff overseeing the project, the consortium recruited 27 Regional Managers (one for each state and one specifically for the Capital), Human Resource Managers and Technical Coordinators.
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