This was the main conclusion of the Pontificia Bolivariana University forum where some of the most important aspects of this statutory law were discussed, it took place yesterday as a collaboration with the Interior Ministry.
The initiative includes novelties such as the implementation of electronic voting, biometric identification (fingerprint system), the electoral register and a reform to the eligibility determination regime for candidates, among many others.
According to the initiative’s coordinator and speaker, Senator Juan Manuel Galán Pachón, the goal is to start applying the changes for the 2014 Congress elections.
“By modernizing the Code we will be able to fight electoral offences such as people changing from a party to another when convenient, buying of votes as well as their manipulation and forgery”.
The National Registrar added that the electronic vote will help the counting , will make the given results more reliable, and will thus avoid ‘involuntary’ phenomena which wear the institutions out as well as the system’s credibility.
The government employee explained for example, how laborious it is to pre count the ballots for public corporations.
“The Council of Bogotá can reach up to 700 candidates in 12 lists, while the ones from the Senate can be more than 800, which implies several formats of up to 60 pages to be filled out by the jury and scrutineers”, stated Sánchez Torres.
The complexity of the templates system pushed some people, such as Senator Galán, to compare it to a sort of “broken phone” which, when added to mistakes caused by poor training, can sometimes bring a difference between what was registered during precounting and what was during balloting of up to 10% according to the Registrar: “In many cases because the data was entered in the wrong box”.