Positive results for biometrics-based voting platform in Venezuelan elections

Smartmatic announced that its biometrics-based automated voting platform achieved positive results in Venezuela’s recent parliamentary elections.

The company, which has serviced Venezuela’s last 14 national elections, provided a complete end-to-end voting platform for the December 6 vote.

The voting platform included voter biometrics authentication, voting, results transmission, tallying and results broadcasting.

“For more than a decade, Smartmatic has proudly serviced the national elections for the people of Venezuela, demonstrating our commitment to transparency, efficiency and accountability,” said Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica. “And this year was no different proving once again that all sides of the political spectrum can be both winners and losers. Amid a polarized political landscape, our technology was able to help deliver results accepted by all parties. The winner is and has always been the will of the people.”

Smartmatic conducted 13 technical audits before, during and after the election to ensure the integrity of its technology, including source code review, machine assembly, biometrics authentication system operation and maintenance of all software components.

Each party contesting the elections appointed their own technicians to participate in every audit in which they successfully confirmed the proper operation of the system.

The voters themselves were able to verify their candidate selections using the hard copy of each vote printed by Smartmatic machines. No discrepancies were found in the citizen audit conducted after the polls were closed.

More than 93.5 percent of voters who used Smartmatic voting machines said they were “very easy” or “easy” to operate, according to recent data from polling group Datanálisis. As such, the improved user experience contributed to a 74% increase in Venezuela’s voter turnout.

Smartmatic distributed 40,601 voting machines across 14,515 polling centers, configuring and deploying a total of 121,803 pieces of electronic voting technology for the election and coordinating logistics for 94,792 system operators across the entire nation.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  elections  |  Smartmatic  |  voter registration