On December 16, and for the second time this year, Venezuela’s electronic voting platform was up for another test. 23 Governors and 237 Regional Legislative Council Representatives were being elected, only 70 days after the presidential election of October 7.
The result: 99.92% of the 36,220 voting machines deployed in 12,784 electronic voting centers performed flawlessly.
Each one of the voting machines Smartmatic deployed was connected to electronic ballots input devices, also designed by Smartmatic, for the voters to select their options, and fingerprint capture devices to authenticate the identity of the voters and initiate the voting sessions.
Besides these solutions, Smartmatic provided a suite of complementing services that guaranteed a smooth performance. The deployment of the robust voting platform involved the coordination of 62,773 in-field operators.
As system integrators, the world leader in elections automation, Smartmatic was in charge of overseeing every aspect of the election administration.
On Election Day, at 8:51 a.m., Venezuela’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) reported that more than 95% of the poll centers were open. The voting platform, which had been set to receive the votes of 17,421,946 citizens, was ready.
Thanks to its inherent ease of use, to the proper training that operators received, and the overall efficiency of the system, 91% of precincts had already transmitted their results to the tallying center 100 minutes after the polls closed. Only 3 hours after the polls closed, authorities were able to announce official results with the certainty of having 95% of the votes counted.
Although the automated platform was thoroughly reviewed through more than a dozen tests and audits before the elections, after the polls closed another set of audits was carried out. 100% of these closing audits showed perfect agreement between the votes recorded in the voting machines and the paper vouchers in the ballot boxes, which had been physically printed by the machines. This audit was performed to approximately 52% of the voting machines.
In short, this was yet another successful election carried out by The Elections Company. After eleven consecutive elections using Smartmatic technology and services, Venezuelans have definitely experienced, first hand, the power of election automation.