These are the recommendations of the EOM for the presidential elections

Colombia is a few days and a month away from the next elections that will define the second round of elections to choose the one who will be the President of the Republic in the next four years, because of this, the Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) presented the sixth 'Partial Electoral Observation Report', in which it gives recommendations and points out the challenges faced by the Colombian electoral system, following those that occurred on March 13 and which produced great distrust among voters, as a result of the illegalities that were presented such as: lost votes, E-14 formats with studs and marks, buying votes and others.

The document presented by the electoral organization emphasized the importance of access to candidates' information so that the process is transparent and voters arrive at the polls knowing who to vote for and how to vote. They also added that the lack of confidence increased because the information in the legislative elections was not as clear or accurate.

“To the chain of failures and errors in computer systems, which, together with insufficient information on the part of the Electoral Organization in the elections for Congress, fractured confidence in the organization of elections and their development; producing — even — strong questions that transcended the legitimacy of their results”, is read in the report of the EOM.

The second suggestion is aimed at the Registrar's Office, asking that errors about voting stations, failures in the website or the Infovoters application be corrected, because in the March 13 elections, many people did not appear at their polling stations and could not exercise the right to vote, in other cases, never were able to access the information provided by the page and this created confusion.

In addition, he noted that this could prevent any future errors or so that inconsistencies can be detected that could affect the system again: “This serves to enable political organizations and civil society to detect any type of inconsistency early,” said the Observation Mission.

On the other hand, the Mission warned of the improper participation of public officials in politics that has been presented, ranging from mayors to the president himself and the military, events that would not have been recorded so frequently in the past. In this regard, all persons holding such a position are called upon “to refrain from publicly expressing any kind of political preference or intervening in disputes arising in the electoral debate”.

Finally, the mechanism reminded the presidential candidates of the importance of passing income and expenditure reports on time, since not everyone's reports have been seen. Until mid-April, according to El Tiempo, only 4 out of 8 candidates submitted the corresponding reports and this worries the Mission, as it is part of the confidence that must be had in the candidates and in the transparency of the elections.

For its part, a few days ago the National Electoral Council (CNE) requested an international audit of information systems, “due to situations of technical origin that had a negative impact on the recent legislative election process”.

“In compliance with this mandate, in the face of the presidential elections, the review is requested through an international audit, aimed at the processes and systems that were inconvenient during the legislative elections,” said César Augusto Abreo, president of the CNE, through the request sent to the registrar Alexander Vega.

Among the systems, inspection must be carried out to the Computer and Logistics of Voter Information (Infovoters), which during the first hours of March 13 did not work due to “failures that could have an impact on limiting the possibilities of citizens to exercise their right to vote during the election process legislative”, according to the CNE.

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