JCE’s IT department remains a concern to parties

Nearly two years after municipal elections were suspended on February 16 due to a malfunction in automated voting equipment, the Computer Directorate of the Central Electoral Council (JCE) has returned to the center of attention of political parties, after information about it was leaked. An “unusual” number of resignations from various technicians from the department now headed by Johnny Rivera.

According to a report by the Organization of American States (OAS), the failure in the recent municipal elections was caused by the failure to review the order itself, spoiling the revocation of then-manager Miguel Angel Garcia.

With People Power confirming its concern on this issue through a petition filed with the Secretary of the Electoral College demanding “urgently” the pending restructuring be implemented and agreed upon with other parties “since the automated voting failed”, other entities that make up the country’s political system have expressed their opinion In this regard.

“Since we have learned of an extraordinary number of resignations of employees, mostly technical personnel from the IT department and reports of outside interference in them, we express our concern, as we see that it does not respect the integrity and form of the IT Directorate,” dictates the letter filed by the party led by the former president Lionel Fernandez.

PLD

The Political Delegate of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) stated before the JCE, Danilo Diaz, that all individuals who have been replaced or changed there must be informed of the political parties in order to show the “transparency” required in that constituency, as it is “one of the essential sections in the organization of electoral processes”.

In fact, Diaz decried that the current CIO is being pressured by a member of the plenary to resign or retire.

“The IT director is under pressure to resign or retire so that the position will pass to someone advised by the ruling party (Modern Revolutionary Party) and they are lobbying through a member of the plenum, which is gradually being restricted,” Diaz told LISTÍN DIARIO.

PRSC

The delegate of the Christian Social Reform Party, Tacito Perdomo, said that at a meeting held last week, he expressed his party’s concern over the issue of unusual resignations, and stated that the necessary restructuring promised by the party after the ruling of February 2020 elections.

“We have to move forward with what was agreed to avoid the problem in a timely manner, as it was in the past, to see that in time to clear things up, we claimed it there, the Reformist Party claimed it … You know what happened last year and there was a staff You should ask them what happened, what did not happen, and everything that needs to be clarified so that what happened in the past does not happen,” added Perdomo.

The reformist leader added that so far the Joint Economic Committee (JCE) has not issued any communication or clarification on the subject of the resignations that occurred from the technicians and that clarification is required from the entity “to avoid rumors”, stressing that none of this will have any effect. The event “if the agreement is respected”.

country alliance

In that order, Sergio Holguin, delegate of Alianza Pais; He stated that they were investigating the complaint but had already expressed in a previous meeting their concerns about the issue.

“Last year we expressed the need to restructure the directorates of information technology and elections along with political parties at lower levels of the directorates,” Holguin said.

PRM

When asked about the matter, the PRM delegate to the JCE, Orlando Jorge Mira, added that he had learned of it through the media but would not until he had “official knowledge of the matter” to issue his opinion. .

background

This is the second time after the end of the last election process that the IT department has been a part of questions about hiring or removing employees without prior knowledge of the parties.

In March 2021, opposition parties denounced the appointment of Sierra Merigo and Danny Reyes as deputy directors of informatics without prior consensus of the majority of political parties, as stipulated in Law 15-19 on the system elections; Noting that both were activists of the ruling party.

It should be noted that in May of that year, the Political Parties Electoral College submitted the certification of Mario Nunez, the current Director of the National Elections Directorate, and Rivera, as Director of Information Technology, who organized the last presidential election. . Rivera took office following the suspension and subsequent dismissal of Miguel Angel Garcia following the failure of municipal elections in February 2020, while Nunez was in charge of logistics.

On that occasion, the opposition parties accepted Nunez and Rivera’s endorsement while the Restructuring Conservatives proposed a complete restructuring of both provinces, in light of the suspension of municipal elections in February last year.