After yesterday the Organization of American States (OAS) released the report with the causes that led to the suspension of the municipal elections on February 16, it was evident that Claro technician Manuel Antonio Regalado, as well as officer Ramón Antonio Guzman Peralta, belonging to the security of the presidential candidate for the Modern Revolutionary Party, Luis Abinader, had no participation in an alleged sabotage of the process, as was initially speculated.
Both were detained after the elections were suspended, attributing an alleged link to boycott the process, so at that time the director of the National Police, Major General Ney Aldrin Bautista, reported that they were under investigation “due to indications that they have knowledge of an alleged boycott that was the object of the automated voting system that the Central Electoral Board would use ”in the elections.
Their statements came after a conversation that supposedly linked them to the alleged “sabotage” was found on both the officer’s and the technician’s mobile phones, which was ruled out in yesterday’s OAS report.
In the 45-page report, the international organization determined that the failures in the system were caused by errors made by the technicians of the JCE’s IT department and not by external attacks on the software.
He explains that the execution of a process of personalization of ballot boxes “lacking an adequate control of integrity” of the information (due to a software defect), is the root cause of the first incident, which was that the electronic ballot did not load by complete in the system and that triggered the suspension of the electoral tournament.
Likewise, the OAS indicates that the poor design of the software, added to the fact that it did not have the tools to detect or prevent the failure and that it was not able to mitigate it in time, also reflects the absence of protocols and the lack of application of good practices. “The audit team found no evidence of external attacks, sabotage or attempted fraud,” he notes.
Colonel Guzmán Peralta’s lawyer
Immediately, Colonel Guzmán Peralta’s lawyer reacted and said that it was shown that both his client and the Claro technician had nothing to do with the suspension of the process, so he considers that his honor was tainted. In that sense, he said that “they only have one way left: justice.”
Antoniano Peralta spoke on his Twitter account where he said that they already have the OAS report with the true causes that caused the problem in the equipment that would be used for electronic voting, which were the causes that suspended the process.
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