Petro Campaign Demands External Audit of Electoral Software for Presidential Elections in Colombia

The campaign of Gustavo Petro demanded this Monday an external audit of the software that will be used in the presidential elections on May 29, given the inconsistencies in the preliminary count in the recent legislative elections that, in principle, subtracted votes from the coalition led by the leftist.

In a public letter, the alliance of the Historical Pact indicated that “go with concern” that the National Registry of Civil Status – in charge of organizing the elections – has not “hired the firm for perform the audit of the software”.

Look: The shadow of the assassination frightens Colombians in the middle of the electoral campaign

In that sense, “we request the National Registrar of Civil Status, without further delay, to contract the audit international and therefore give peace of mind to the political forces and the citizenry”, added the group that supports the opposition Petrofavorite in the polls.

Before the pronouncement of the Historical Pact, justice electoral I had already requested the review external of the system after legislative in mid-March, in which the final count gave almost 400,000 votes for that coalition that had not been included in the pre-count released on voting day.

After the final count, the leftist coalition won three additional seats in parliament to reach 35 and become the party with the most seats.

The right-wing coalition made up of the conservatives and the ruling party, Democratic Center, lost two seats compared to the pre-count and questioned the final result.

As a result of the controversy, the National Council Electoralmade up of representatives of the political parties, asked in April that the Registrar’s Office advance “a audit of an international nature” on the computer systems used for the pre-counting and scrutiny of the votes.

Although the vote is manual in Colombiathe results are processed and transmitted through two digital programs designed by private contractors.

Several civil organizations have questioned the transparency of these programs and ask to review their source code.

According to campaign from Petrothe audit international has not yet been contracted “despite the fact that the companies have already presented their technical and economic proposals”.

Questioned over the weekend on the subject, the head of the Registrar’s Office, Alexander Vega, assured that the auditing company will be selected during the week.

Petro62-year-old senator and former guerrilla, leads the voting intention for the first round, although without sufficient support to avoid the ballot on June 19.

The former mayor of Medellín (2016-2019) Federico Gutiérrez, candidate for the coalition of right-wing parties, would be his rival in the second round, according to polls.

Source: Elcomercio

Deshawn