National Electoral Council requested international audit to verify the procedures of the Registrar's Office in the forthcoming elections

The National Registry is facing a moment of low credibility on the part of citizens due to the counting of votes in the last legislative elections that took place on March 13. Even the same institution acknowledged that after complaints and demands from citizens, movements and sectors in general found that there was no fraud, but that in the rectification of the information more than a million votes were found that had been discarded.

After the political controversy, citizens and others asked the Attorney General's Office to remove the registrar, Alexander Vega from office, but Attorney Margarita Cabello ratified the decision to keep him as a registrar in the presidential elections to be held on May 29.

Due to the panorama that creates many doubts and that has created rejection of even the same candidates who will face arriving at the Casa de Nariño and lead the country for the next four years, this April 21, the judges of the National Electoral Council (CNE), the body responsible for inspecting, controlling and supervising the elections requested that the count be monitored by a third party of an international character.

According to W Radio, the CNE sent the registrar a request to contract an international audit that would give Colombians peace of mind about the transparency of the hardware and software involved. That is to say that in the following topics one can have one hundred percent confidence in the conduct of the Registrar's Office and its officials: The registration of ballot papers, preparation of electoral kits, the selection of juries and witnesses, the transmission of data and processing of pre-counting; and the counting process that will ultimately determine who will be the new president of Colombia.

On April 12, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation asked the CNE and the Registrar's Office to take measures to “shield the elections”, in this regard, it asked them to present a plan to achieve that objective. The route should be presented before the end of April.

“Prosecutor Margarita Cabello requested the Registrar's Office and the National Electoral Council to report, within 5 days, the complete strategic plan for the upcoming presidential elections that would allow, in a preventive manner, to eliminate or mitigate the risks or events such as those that occurred on March 13,” reads in a document issued by the Office of the Attorney General.

The supervisory body upheld its request in the hundreds of complaints received due to irregularities presented at the polling stations, including corruption of the suffragant, personal falsehood, disruption to the democratic contest and fraudulent voting.

The Prosecutor's Office was notified of 131 reports of possible electoral crimes filed through the Immediate Reception Unit for Electoral Transparency (Uriel). It should be noted that this was notified in the national territory, since in the elections abroad, the Prosecutor's Office also learned about 62 complaints, which will be evaluated to establish whether there is merit to open a formal case.

In addition, more than 400 complaints were reported for irregularities in the pre-counting and completion of E-14 forms. For this reason, the Attorney General's Office even ordered an investigation of Registrar Alexander Vega and asked to inquire into all the movements of the entity. Thus, it will be necessary to find out about the parameters for choosing the voting juries, the registration and registration of voters, as well as the relationship of the National Registry Office with one of the contractors.

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