Jalisco’s novel electronic voting system appears to have met performance expectations in Chapala, Jocotepec and 41 other municipalities, with only minor foul-ups reported during the July 1 election.
The urna electronicas were used for the first time in electoral districts 1 and 17 and the municipality of Gomez Farias.
Lakeside voters from all age groups and different walks of life demonstrated little difficulty in handling the computerized touch screen devices to mark their preferences in the state’s gubernatorial, congressional and mayoral contests.
Over four months preceding the election, Jalisco’s Electoral Institute (IEPC) ran five public trials of the cutting-edge voting machines in each of the communities where they were to be installed. However, Gustavo Vargas Carranza – an authorized voting assistant assigned to Chapala poll 459 – reported that very few of the voters he encountered had bothered to familiarize themselves with the equipment in advance.
Nonetheless, most people easily adapted to the modernized system. The Reporter observed many whizzing through the three-step procedure in less than a minute. A rough calculation based on watching 20 voters take their turns, including some who did require guidance, indicated an average time of 41 seconds per person.While rating the new voting system as fast and painless, many voters complained about the time they spent waiting in line to get to the machines. A number of the local polling stations opened 30 to 90 minutes behind the scheduled 8 a.m. starting time, primarily due to the challenges involved in setting up for the day. Long lines built up from the get-go as ordinary citizens serving as election officials scrambled to get up the equipment and running and prepare the requisite paperwork.
Voting for national elective offices by conventional paper ballots ran smoothly, facilitated by the use of double-sided booths that allowed two individuals to vote simultaneously. But the fast turnover only added to back-ups for getting to the second-stage state and local contests.
Overall, IEPC President Tomas Figueroa Padilla qualified the introduction of the electronic ballot box as a resounding success, underscoring its value to reduce human error in calculating and recording the vote count, as well as speed up announcements of election outcomes.
Vote tallies generated by the electronic system began flowing minutes after the polls closed, with approximately 50 percent of the figures from districts 1 and 17 computed within the first hour. By midnight the rate jumped to 95 percent, compared to tabulation of around half of the returns from elsewhere.
IEPC reported that only 29 of the 991 new voting gadgets malfunctioned, representing a three-percent failure rate. In cases of irreparable glitches, polling officials pulled out backup supplies of paper ballots as substitutes.
Figueroa himself was among an estimated half-million Jalisco voters given access to the urna electronica this year. He and his wife Alejandra Arredondo Wilson appeared at Ajijic polling station 466, located on Calle Zaragoza near their lakeside residence, shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon. The couple patiently stood in line alongside their two young daughters during a 45-minute wait to cast their votes.
“The federal procedure was fast; the electronic one took a bit longer,” he confided to reporters on hand at his departure. “But I’m sure it will go more rapidly in future elections.”