Wellman: Three reasons for failure in the 2024 legislative elections

The ballot receiving committee (JRV) at the Olympic Boulevard Voting Center. / Digital elevation model

Former County Magistrate Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) Guillermo Wellman He attacked the leadership of the agency’s Information Systems Unit (USI) for “tripping” them up in the February 4, 2024 legislative elections.

The former electoral judge mentioned in an article published in the magazine World Elections that the failure occurred during the “disclosure of preliminary election results.” The leadership of the USI is composed of Ignacio Villagrana computer technician who was allegedly assigned to the office Dora de Barahona, former president of TSE.

Wellman believes there are three reasons for failure:

1. Lack of experience.
2. negligence.
3. TSE lacks emergency response plan.

Furthermore, he admitted that it was a “big mistake” that they did not maintain the “Computer Coordination Committee” that had produced positive results in the 2021 elections in the 2024 elections.

“In terms of personal fault, and as a university body, I think it was a big mistake not to maintain the Computer Coordination Committee, which delivered good results for us in the 2021 elections, and to hand it over to someone with no experience in 2024 with such a huge responsibility”.
Guillermo Wellman, former TSE judge.

Judge Wellman said the transmission network was clearly saturated “and there was a lack of contingency planning” to “solve” the problems working on the transmission network. Voting Receiving Committee (JRV)he was unable to forward the minutes of the meeting on the election of Legislative Council representatives.

Wellman claimed in his article that “many polling members left the polling centres without being able to “complete preliminary screening”, possibly due to instructions from certain political parties.

In November 2022, the Tokyo Stock Exchange issued a call for a new director of information and communications technology, and two months later, the agency reported that it had hired Osvaldo Rolando Martinez.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange considered him “the best candidate for the position”, but six months later, the then Magistrates Dora de Barahona, Noel Orellana, Guillermo Wellman and Rubén Mélendez They voted to move it to Internal Project Management.

Martinez was replaced by The Plenary Assembly appointed Ignacio Villagrán, who graduated in 2016 with a degree in computer science of PhD from Andres Bello UniversityAccording to four sources, Villagrande was a computer technician in the TSE chairman’s office.

Villagrán received training and holds a master’s degree in computer security Don Bosco University (UDB) He is a school computer teacher.