BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- In a bid to make balloting cheaper and more open, a half-million Argentines will try their hand at electronic voting in an upcoming gubernatorial election.
The Sept. 14 pilot test will involve 500,000 voters distributed among 20 constituencies in the eastern Argentine province of Buenos Aires, the most populous in the country. With an area of 118,000 square miles, the province -- with a population of more than 10 million -- is roughly the size of the state of Arizona.
The election system to be used in Buenos Aires is fairly simple. The voting machines are similar to an automatic teller machine, consisting of a metal cabinet with a numeric keyboard, a computer screen, a hard disk and a printing mechanism that will provide voters with a paper record. Voters will cast their ballots discreetly behind privacy curtains.
Upon arriving at the booths, voters will hand their ID cards to an election official -- no change from the normal procedure -- who then will enter the citizens' personal information into a small terminal.
Voters then will go behind the curtain to type a number corresponding to the candidate of their choice. A picture of the candidate will pop up on the screen immediately.
If the voter's choice has been read correctly, the voter will press a green key, finalizing the choice. If not, the voter simply presses a red key to correct the mistake. In case a voter is not willing to cast his or her ballot for any candidate on the slate, there is a white key for the "none of the above" vote. After a vote is entered, the machine makes a sound and prints a paper record.
Though the procedure is easy, many citizens will enter the high-tech ballot booths full of doubts -- and citizens of Buenos Aires are not the only ones who might feel uneasy about the upcoming test.
The pilot program has been approved by the provincial Congress, but the amendment of the election law by the National Congress is still pending, a situation that has Gov. Felipe Solá on edge.
"The e-vote would allow us to conduct a test leading to modernization and greater transparency," he said. "If the National Congress does not give us the law we need -- which is being blocked by the 'political corporation' -- then we will conduct a test with no legal value, though it will be a useful experience for the people."
And what do inhabitants of this province haunted by urban violence and poverty say?
"We have heard something about e-vote," said agricultural producer Marcelo Bardi, 39, of Bolivar. "But we don't know how it is used, and for the time being, the authorities have not explained a thing."
"E-vote?" asked Alberto Ansaldi. The storekeeper from Olavarria has large hands, and his skin has been hardened by the sun. "I haven't heard anything for the time being, but I think there are more important things to solve, (such) as unemployment," Ansaldi said. "I'd rather go on voting with a paper ballot and have the government use that money to give us more security."
In the short term, the electronic voting test will save Argentines money.
Brazil loaned Argentina more than 900 PC terminals, and has made available to any voter with Web access an online demo that is an exact replica of the system that will be used here.
Ongoing controversies surround electronic voting in the United States and few places in the world have had previous experience with the process. Electronic voting has been successfully tested in Brazil, Mexico and Paraguay.
The advantages, according to Buenos Aires Cabinet Chief Florencio Randazzo, include "greater transparency in election procedures and considerable savings in public expenditure, mainly in paper ballot printing."
With regard to transparency -- always a concern in Latin American countries that are relatively new to the democracy game -- Randazzo called the process trustworthy, explaining that the voting machines are not networked.
Instead, each machine has a flash memory card that stores information. Overseers representing each political party will be posted at each voting site and will receive tickets with the ballot totals. Ultimately, the Election Board will receive the information saved on a diskette.
"As to saving(s) in public expenditure, it will range between 40 and 50 percent," said Randazzo. "Spending in ballot printing and disposable ballot boxes will be cut."
But if adopted permanently, electronic voting won't be quite as cheap going forward.
Brazil loaned Buenos Aires its voting machines for use in only two elections. After the initial tests, the provincial government will have to buy its own electronic voting machines at about $350, or more than 1,000 Argentine pesos, each. Not everyone will agree to such spending in a country in the midst of a seemingly unending economic crisis.
