PM Network - March 2010

Election nights are typically tense affairs, with the candidates and public waiting until the wee hours of the morning to discover the victors. But those tracking Panama’s presi- dential election on 3 May 2009 didn’t have to stew for long. Just two and a half hours after the polls closed, the president and presiding magistrate of the country’s Electoral Tribunal made the traditional phone call to the winner, Ricardo Martinelli. No previous election in Panama had been concluded so quickly.

No matter that some polling stations were located deep in the jungle, far from the nearest landline. An impressive blend of database, Internet and mobile telephone technologies combined to generate minute-by-minute updates of completed electoral counts, which were then displayed on giant screens at the press center.

“The polls closed at 4 p.m., and at 4: 34 p.m. we started to get results in from small rural communities,” says magistrate Eduardo Valdés-Escoffery, vice president of the Electoral Tribunal. “At 6 p.m. the margin between the two main candidates was so wide that it was clear who was going to be the eventual winner. At 6: 30 p.m., we could announce the unofficial results.”

2. 5
The number of hours it
took to deliver
results in the
2009 Panama
presidential election

74%
The portion of
registered voters
who turned out
for the election

RECLAIMING HISTORY

Beginning in 1983, Panama was under the dictatorship of Manuel Noriega, until a U.S. invasion deposed the de facto leader early in 1990. Eager to shrug off the shadow of Mr. Noriega’s regime, Panama installed a newly empowered Electoral Tribunal untainted by the fraud that had kept the dictator and his cohorts in power.

The tribunal has gone on to become one of the most trusted public bodies in Latin America, and the elections it runs are held up as global case studies in fair and free universal suffrage.

Almost from the start, that electoral process has relied heavily on technology.

Determined to avoid even the faintest hint of fraud, the tribunal created a vast electoral database. Supplemented by biometric data such as fingerprints and photo-recognition software, it helps ensure each citizen only votes once for specific vacancies and candidates relevant to their address.

To keep everything in order, the country strictly enforces its policies. For example, it’s mandatory for deaths to be registered before friends and family can hold the burial ceremony. And children cannot be enrolled in school without possessing a birth certificate.

Citizens’ births and deaths are captured at computer terminals located not only at the Electoral Tribunal’s offices throughout the country, but also at the largest public and private hospitals. The biggest supermarket chains are connected, too, issuing birth and death certificates.

Given the emphasis on electronic information, remote regions are slowly being provided with wireless communication technologies.

In short, the Electoral Tribunal’s database captures key milestones in the lives of Panama’s citizens, empowering them to vote—and helping keep those votes part of an equitable electoral process.

To accomplish such a goal, the project team had to secure trustworthy communication channels through which election results could be transmitted. There also had to be open and transparent processes in which those results could be speedily tabulated and published.

The technology used in the 2004 presidential election worked well— but for the 2009 election, Electoral Tribunal officials wanted something bigger, better and glitzier.