RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) will buy some 180,000 electronic voting machines to be used in next year’s municipal elections, when new mayors and city council members will be chosen.
The new machines will replace the older ones, which came into operation in 2006 and 2008. The acquisition cost has not yet been determined.
This week, the TSE held a public hearing to receive suggestions from interested companies. The TSE also raised questions regarding technical specifications, safety, and maintenance of the equipment. Next Tuesday, July 9th, a technical opinion on the bids submitted to the court is expected to be published.
According to TSE Information Technology Secretary Giuseppe Janino, replacing the equipment is necessary to improve the technology used at the polls. According to the secretary, Brazil holds the largest computerized election in the world.
“We came out of a manual electoral procedure, with a low degree of credibility, until we reach a high degree of trust with the citizenry, using the integrity and security features that only the digital model can provide,” said Janino.
Electronic voting machines began to be used in the 1996 municipal elections. According to the TSE, there has never been any kind of fraud in the electronic voting system.