E-082 /99ie
August 10, 1999

OAS CALLS ANDEAN SUBREGIONAL CONFERENCE ON ELECTORAL PROCEDURES

 

An Andean Subregional Conference on Computerization of Civil Registries and Electoral Procedures is scheduled to be held in Quito, Ecuador, next August 17 and 18 for electoral experts from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

The meeting is sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS) with support from Ecuador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Through the Technical Electoral Assistance Group, the OAS Unit for the Promotion of Democracy is organizing and overseeing the event.

Based on mandates from the Miami and Santiago hemispheric Summits, the OAS has included among the priority areas of its agenda cooperation programs and technical studies aimed at bolstering democracy and electoral processes in member states. The Quito Conference will thus seek to further modernize civil registries and electoral bodies as part of state reform and democracy consolidation programs.

The four major topics on the agenda for the Conference are: institutional analysis and diagnosis of civil registry systems; use of technology to modernize civil registry systems; automated electoral processes; and subregional exchange and cooperation in automating electoral procedures.

A total of 19 high-level experts from Andean countries and world-renown presenters will conduct institutional diagnosis of civil registry systems in five countries, to identify comparative needs, weaknesses and strengths of registries in the subregion.

The participants, meanwhile, will study new information technologies that are applicable to civil registry, national identification and voters’ list preparation and electoral organization to come up with systems to meet present demands, based on the commitment to improving transparency in democratic processes with broad citizen participation.

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