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OAS Delivers Report on Audit of System of Transmission of Electoral Results in Honduras

The Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) of the Organization of American States (OAS) today delivered to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Honduras the final audit of the integrated system of electoral scrutiny and disclosure (SIEDE) that will be used during the general elections of November 24, 2013.

The Mission would like to recognize, first of all, the efforts of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to carry out the implementation and commissioning of one of the recommendations of the final report of the Electoral Observation Mission of the OAS to the primary elections of 2012, through the implementation of a new system of transmission of results, in order to contribute to the process, and hopes that the recommendations in this report can contribute to the good performance of the SIEDE on election day.

The audit, which is part of the "Commitment to minimum guarantees for ethical and transparent elections," signed by the TSE and the nine parties competing, had as its main objective the verification of the quality and transparency of the new transmission system. Its scope is restricted to the analysis of the technical feasibility of the automated processes critical to the success of the system.

With the arrival in Honduras of a team composed of two technical auditors and a group of specialists in electoral technology and observation of electoral processes, the audit began operations on October 24, 2013 with the development of an Operational Work Plan and ended today, November 20, 2013, with the delivery of this report.

The report submitted to the TSE presents the results, findings and recommendations of the analysis, which included the survey and validation of information related to the functional development of the system and the observation of the three simulations carried out by the TSE in order to determine the conditions of quality and transparency.

The findings relate primarily to the behavior of the system during the simulation, which was carried out without all of the features provided and with lower test loads than those objectives defined for this audit. For this reason, the conclusions relate to the behavior of the system until the date mentioned, based on the functionality implemented in the simulations, without the possibility of predicting their performance with the volume of information expected on election day.

In relation to the quality of the software, the audit examined the correctness, reliability, efficiency, integrity and ease of use, which together constitute elements of international best practices for the development of such programs. However, the audit recommended in its report to ensure and implement a series of measures both functional and related to security prior to election day.

The modules comprising the treatment of records, including scanning, printing and transmission, reception of digitized records, forwarding to political parties and international auditing, consistency analysis of the minutes passed, transcription , verification of records and monitoring of inconsistencies meet quality standards required for this particular process. The integrity of the transmitted data was retained, while the results obtained and delivered in the following steps were correct. However, the report makes a record of technical issues that should be addressed and corrected prior to election day.

With regard to transparency, the audit noted that the system, from the point of view of its functionality, constitutes as a whole an important step in ensuring access to information both for political parties, international auditors and the citizenry in general.

Although as the report notes, there are still aspects of the system that need to be improved with respect to the electoral process, the audit wishes to note that, in general terms and under the technical conditions observed, the operational modules that make up the system as a whole are functional, meeting the parameters established within the SIEDE process.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-448/13