The National Electoral Council of Ecuador (CNE) ordered last night the repetition of the legislative elections abroad, after verifying technical failures in the electronic voting system and attacks on the platform launched on August 20, in the first round of the early elections.
“The respective areas are being arranged to do what is appropriate for the repetition of elections for this dignity for the constituencies abroad,” Diana Atamaint, president of the CNE, declared last night, the Sputnik news agency reported.
Data from the electoral body showed that of 409,250 people residing abroad, around 100,000 had registered on the electronic platform to be able to vote, but only 51,623 finished the process.
According to the CNE, these figures prove that technical complications could somehow alter the process in the case of assembly members.
In parallel, the electoral body reported that the digital platform had received attacks from seven countries, without giving further details.
This repetition will only be for the elections to the National Assembly (Parliament) and excludes the vote for president and vice president, since the authorities considered that these votes do not influence the final result.
The CNE defined that the repetition of the legislative vote for migrants will take place on the same day of the presidential ballot, next October 15, when the candidate of the Revolución Ciudadana (RC) movement, Luisa González, and the businessman Daniel Noboa, from the National Democratic Alliance.
With 93.76% of the votes counted, González, dolphin of ex-president Rafael Correa, was the most voted, with 33.35%, followed by the right-wing Noboa, with 24% of the votes, both below the 40% that he needs at least to win the Presidency, so they will have to face each other in the second round.
Ecuador reserves six of its seats in the National Assembly for deputies elected in three outer constituencies, one made up of Europe, Oceania and Asia; another for Canada and the United States; and the third corresponding to Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
The electoral body’s announcement came two days after RC formalized a criminal complaint with the Pichincha Prosecutor’s Office for attacks on the CNE computer system and requested the opening of an investigation.
According to the complaint, the hackers, still unidentified, would have violated the security protocols of the electoral body system that allows virtual voting abroad, with the aim of suppressing the right to vote for a significant portion of the migrant population residing in abroad.
On the day of the elections, residents abroad denounced inconveniences to cast their electronic vote, as happened on February 5 of this year for the election of local authorities and members of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control, inspection and control entity.
Source: Ambito
