SEPTEMBER 2021: DEPLOYMENT OF EVOTERS, EHOLDERS, EPARTICIPA, EUNIVERSITIES, EASSEMBLIES SERVICES

Written by EVoting Communications / 04 de Octubre del 2021

Elections of the College of Nurses of Peru, CGE Shareholders' Meeting, University elections and important testimonies of its authorities mark this month.

Although all EVoting’s specific services are always active, it is not common for all of them to be deployed in the same month. That is what happened in September, when EVoters -focused on electronic elections-, EHolders -dedicated to shareholders’ meetings-, EParticipation -oriented to citizen participation-, EUniversities -specialized in higher education institutions-, and EAssemblies -focused on members’ assemblies- had important activities.

EVoters’ 11 elections for companies, especially in the area of Joint Committees, and Affiliation or Change of Compensation Fund. By way of comparison, during the entirety of 2019 there were only 11 of these processes and during 2020, we reached 19. The particularity of these elections lies in the fact that they generally have many candidates. For example, in September, Enel’s Generación Chile had 235 candidates and Enel’s Green Power had 163 candidates.

They also highlighted the General Elections of the Peruvian Nurses Association, the largest election held by EVoting in that country, with a register of 22,000 voters. The President of the CEP’s National Electoral Committee, Jorge Raul Ángeles, noted that the process was “a great electoral party”.

EHolders Highlighted this area the Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting of CGE, which was held in a mixed modality -electronic remote and face-to-face electronic- and was moderated by the President of the board of directors from Beijing, China, with simultaneous Chinese-Spanish translation.

EVoting’s Manager of Meetings and Assemblies, Eduardo Cáceres, emphasized that “if we did not have the remote modality, which allows the participation of those who cannot travel to these meetings, the highest authority of the company would not have been able to participate”.

EParticipation During the last week of September, the commune of Loncoche, in southern Chile, made its debut with EVoting’s electronic citizen participation platform, with a Consultation for parents and students on the return to face-to-face classes.

This online citizen participation project will run until December and will probably include face-to-face electronic voting, where neighbors will be able to go to a voting place equipped with pre-registered computers and trained monitors, one of the characteristics of EParticipation.

EAssemblies Another platform used was the one oriented to members’ meetings and assemblies. The Bradford School, whose 160 members, proxies of the campus, defined matters related to the internal functioning of the campus.

#EUniversities In September, not only did the demand from higher education institutions for the use of electronic voting continue, but also a global campaign was launched to present this service, which already includes 19 universities and more than 130,000 votes received. Read the complete article here.

As a result of the above, EVoting received testimonials from important university authorities from Chile, Costa Rica and Ecuador, about their experience with this platform. Here are some of them.

Elisa Araya, Rector of the Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación, UMCE. The first woman Rector of UMCE, said: “Electronic voting is not only an advantage for participation. One would like to advance not only in universities, but also in a more direct democracy in the country”. Read the complete interview here.

Juan Manuel Zolezzi, rector of the University of Santiago. Since 2020, the University of Santiago has conducted 21 internal election processes with EVoting. “We had several processes to resolve and I think they were optimally resolved,” said the rector, highlighting the electronic voting system. Read the complete interview here.

Sara Baccaglio, Head of Information Technology at the University of Costa Rica and member of the University Electoral Tribunal. The campus underwent an exhaustive international review process to select with whom to conduct its elections and “EVoting was the one that obtained the best qualification in technical aspects”, says Sara Baccaglio. Read the complete interview here.

Pablo Palacios, Coordinator of Computer Services at the University of Cuenca. For the first time, the University of Cuenca, Ecuador held its elections via electronic voting. “The process was successful and the accompaniment and tools were very good, providing guarantees that the results were correct,” said the professor. Read the complete article here.

Carlos Saavedra, Rector of the Universidad de Concepción: In 2020, the Universidad de Concepción incorporated electronic voting to the elections of its academic authorities. “The continuity of the processes of renewal of democratically elected authorities has been maintained through these new mechanisms that guarantee the fundamental aspects of an election process: the information, secrecy and integrity of the vote.” Read the complete interview here.