Published: 10/15/2011
On Friday, during the plenary session of the 2011 National Lawyers Guild Convention, the President of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, highlighted that one of the most important achievements of the CNE is having incorporated the use of technological tools into the electoral system.
“The incorporation of technology has been and continues to be a factor that reinforces the guarantee of the right to vote,” highlighted Lucena from Philadelphia, where the convention was held. “We have defeated the culture of fraud that characterized the previous system. In integrating voting technologies into the process, one of the most important challenges with changing the model has been that of generating multiple verifiable guarantees, so the political parties and citizens are able to participate and trust the results of the electoral events,” Lucena noted.
“The most important technical and political endorsement is about having audits made alongside the representatives and technicians appointed by the political parties,” highlighted the CNE president.
Additionally, Lucena explained that in 2004 the CNE gave way to a policy to assess and create new polling centers and stations that brought a substantial growth from 8,278 polling centers in 2000 to 14,025 in 2011. In the same period, individual polling stations went up from 7,000 to 38,236, she explained.
The president of the Electoral Branch of Government explained to a number of American lawyers the willingness of the CNE to receive international accompaniers during Venezuelan elections, under the principles of sovereignty, self-determination and respect.
“The National Electoral Council, just like their counterparts in other countries in the region, is open to international accompaniment in our electoral processes; we are willing to share our experience and know about others’; we respect the principles of sovereignty, non- interference, self-determination and respect for the rights of each country. We demand the same treatment for our people”, she said.
U.S. Experience in Venezuelan Electoral System
Some of the members of the National Lawyers Guild who attended the convention were international accompaniers during the 2007 constitutional referendum in Venezuela.
Urszula Masny-Latos said that her visit to the country during the referendum was very interesting since she was able to verify the reliability and transparency of the Venezuelan electoral system.
“The system actually is very well designed. It is set in a way that is very impressive,” she highlighted. “For example, wherever we went there was a representative of the government and also representatives of the opposition present; they just serve as observers to make sure that the whole system is done properly,” she said.
For her part, Judy Somberg, who also served as an international accompanier in the 2007 referendum, considered that “it was fascinating learning how the electoral process worked and learning about the voting machines, the vote counting systems, the backup system for it and center locations where the voting count came in directly from the voting machines. It was very different from how we do it in the U.S.”
Both Masny-Latos and Somberg agreed about the fact that the level of electoral participation during those elections was admirable. “In Venezuela what we saw is that everyone was encouraged to vote,” said Masny-Latos. The Venezuelan electoral system “is very well developed, very thought out, very responsive to the concerns. It seems to be a very fair process,” Somberg noted.
The International Committee of the National Lawyers Guild submitted a report to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights, held in Geneva last week, entitled “Venezuela As A Model For Implementation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” Among other aspects, the report highlights the improvement of the standard of living of the country’s vast majority of previously excluded poor.
During her visit to the U.S., Lucena also spoke at the Inter-American Dialogue, in Washington, DC.
Photo: Nestor Sanchez-Cordero
Press Office – Venezuelan Embassy to the U.S. / October 14, 2011
Original article link here: http://venezuela-us.org/2011/10/15/technology-of-venezuelan-electoral-system-reinforces-and-guarantees-the-right-to-vote/
