A new botched attempt to modernize elections in Dominican Republic

Election authorities in Dominican Republic failed once again to modernize its elections through technology. This time around the problems surfaced during the municipal elections held on February 16, 2020. 

Only four hours after polls opened, the Junta Central Electoral, the Dominican electoral body, realized that something was wrong with the voting machines. Julio Cesar Castanos, president of the Junta Central, acknowledged that nearly half of the voting machines did not work, leaving citizens unable to cast their votes. 

One day before the election, officials had been warned of a problem with the technology, yet, they thought it could be fixed. “We were warned, but not of the magnitude of the problem,” Mr. Castanos Guzman said. “They told us it was an issue that could be fixed the second the machines were installed.”

The automated voting system was deployed in 18 of the 158 municipalities and focused on cities and regions with high population density. Traditional voting was used elsewhere. 

This major mishap should not come as a surprise. In a video that leaked after the suspension of the elections, Guzman admitted that they had not done sufficient testing ahead of the election. Also, in 2016, the Junta Central Electoral failed its attempt to automate the voter authentication process. Although the electronic poll books did not work, authorities managed to complete the election that time. 

Although there are many reasons why this municipal election failed, one that cannot be overlooked is the fact that authorities dared to develop the system themselves with the help of providers that had zero election expertise. Instead of relying on expert companies and technology that is already available, they insisted on creating their own. Their lack of experience is now bare naked.

Election experts warn against RFID-based voting systems

A voting system which uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to store electronic votes has been under scrutiny after election experts questioned its capacity to safeguard the integrity of election data. 

Though the voting system had been tested in a few Argentine jurisdictions, academics from around the world had not had a real chance to analyze it in detail until authorities from the Democratic Republic of Congo decided to use a similar system for the long-delayed elections of December, 2018. The decision to automate the controversial elections using an untested system drew criticism from U.S. diplomats.

According to experts from The Sentry, it is possible to manipulate the information the RFID chip contains, since the use of this unique identifier technology and radio communications give off signals that can be easily detected at distances greater than expected. Experts recommend election officials to refrain from implementing this type of technology. 

RFID technology is well known for its usefulness in tracking inventories, but its use extends to other industries, from bookstores and apparel to health and transportation. The main benefit of having RFIDs is that it allows quick communication with remote sensors. Nonetheless, however useful RFID may be for certain industries, elections are an entirely different ballgame. The capacity to allow remote sensors to read the information it contains opens the door for bad actors to hack the votes. 

An RFID-based system was ruled out in Israel in 2010 as it was considered unsafe. Researchers Yossef Oren and Avishai Wool, from the Tel-Aviv University, demonstrated that the secret of the vote was compromised with such type of systems. In their paper, they “show how the proposed system can be completely compromised using low-cost relay attacks. Our attacks allow an adversary to read out all votes already cast into the ballot box, suppress the votes of one or several voters, rewrite votes at will and even completely disqualify all votes in a single voting station. Our attacks are easy to mount, very difficult to detect, and compromise both the confidentiality and the integrity of the election system.”

The future of this technology is unknown. For now, only a few Argentine provinces have dared to use it. The elections in Congo, which led to weeks of post-election violence and political unrest, are a testament to what a poorly designed election system can do to the legitimacy of elections.

Election modernization moves forward in Argentina

Argentina held its Primary, Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory elections on Sunday, August 11. The primaries determine the candidates for the October 27, general elections. In addition to voting for president and vice president, voters will elect 130 federal deputies and 24 national senators next October.

During these 2019 primary elections, technology helped streamline unofficial results. Optical scanners were distributed to approximately 73% of polling centers to help digitize tallying reports and then transmit the information for further processing and publication. The technology deployed was critical in achieving three important feats:

1.       Delivery of provisional results in record time. The provisional tally reached 87.83% of telegrams computed by midnight, a record in the Argentine elections.

2.       Increased transparency. 88% of the provisional results were made public on Election Day. This is a major feat considering that in 2015, only 21.3% were processed on the day of the election. Political parties, authorities, and voters were able to monitor the entire process from end to end.

3.       Improved accuracy. Official results of the primaries (just released), in the 24 provinces of Argentina, confirmed the accuracy the provisional count. The difference between the provisional and the final count did not amount to more than 1% in any region.

The delivery of the results in record time, together with the confirmation by official results of the precision and transparency of provisional data published at midnight on Election Day, shows how technology can assist election officials in improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of its elections.