Argentina’s senate voted down an electoral reform proposal that included the implementation of single electronic ballots. Many are calling the decision a political defeat for Mauricio Macri, who backed the reform, and which was heavily opposed by the Kirchner bloc, known as the Front for Victory. Thursday, November 26, the political party made its majority status in the Senate known by holding off the initiative, based on the testimony of computer experts and their explanations regarding “the high vulnerability of some of the proposed methods” involved in the electronic voting ballots. The Peronists reportedly guaranteed their support for the reform, but decided yesterday to boycott it. Experts only seemed to be on board with an effort to “continue analyzing tools that will improve the electoral system.”
… The Secretary of Political Affairs Adrián Pérez was the first to take initiative against those who rejected electoral reform, telling La Nación that the senators and governors of the Justicialista Party “gave a clear signal that they prefer to maintain their feudal power in many provinces rather than meet the citizen’s demand for clean, equitable and transparent elections.”
President Macri told both Perez and Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio that they must go ahead with steps to approve the reform.
“We will be able to approve it in the long run,” he said, “even if there is resistance. It is a citizen’s demand and they have no alternative.”
Full Article: Argentinean Senate Blocks E-Voting Bill.
