Electronic Voting, Key for Peaceful Elections in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela--(BUSINESS WIRE)--“The recognition of electoral results in record time honors our work and confirms the immense value of a secure, auditable voting technology that’s recognized by all political figures.” These were the words of Antonio Mugica, Smartmatic’s CEO, the company which provided the technology used by the Venezuelan voters who chose their President for the 2013-2019 period.

“only when you have an end-to-end automated process, and an exact, auditable technology, you can guarantee that the results will be accepted by all, regardless of how close they are.”

The event which took place in Venezuela last Sunday, October 7, was technologically innovative: for the first time in the world, national elections were carried out with biometric voter authentication to activate the voting machines. “Already back in 2004 we conducted the first national election worldwide with printed voting vouchers; yesterday we proved that we keep setting trends, as we carried out the first national election with biometric activation of the voting machines,” added Mugica.

This electoral technology landmark was the result of the efforts of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE), which worked together with Smartmatic as technology supplier, successfully automating every step of the election. This full automation of the voting process, end to end, guaranteed that it was bullet-proof from a technical standpoint, and left no room for interpretations or manipulations. According to Mugica “only when you have an end-to-end automated process, and an exact, auditable technology, you can guarantee that the results will be accepted by all, regardless of how close they are.”

Smartmatic is the election technology company with the most electoral projects carried out in the world. “Precisely last Sunday we also took part in the Brazilian municipal elections. Next Sunday we’ll have interesting responsibilities in the Belgian elections. We can say that in just 8 days we are serving some 170 million voters around the world,” stated Mugica.

Key conclusions of the Venezuelan election

• Smartmatic’s electoral solution was employed on a national scale for the 10th time in Venezuela, in an end-to-end 100% automated process.
• Out of 18,903,143 citizens registered to vote in the presidential elections, voter turnout was around 81%, record figures in Venezuelan electoral history.
• Venezuela used a new biometric voter authentication system for the first time, as well as a newly designed e-ballot working in unison with the 39,018 voting machines that were deployed in 13,810 polling centres.
• The CNE published official results only minutes after the last polling station closed.
• The total of the audits performed on some 21,000 machines (53%) at the end of Election Day, faithfully confirmed the results.

About Smartmatic

Smartmatic is a multinational company that designs and deploys technological solutions aimed at helping governments fulfill, in the most efficient way, their commitments with their citizens. It is one of the largest cutting-edge technology suppliers, with a wide and proven experience in the United States, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.