Bowing to pressure, Electoral Board agrees to manual vote count

Santo Domingo.- The Central Electoral Board (JCE) on Tuesdayapproved a manual vote-count for the presidential ballots in all polling stations,partly in response to requests by opposition parties that have voiced distrust ofthe electronic tally.

The manual counting will be done after the electronic countwith new equipment, and according to JCE president Roberto Rosario, the manualcount by officials at polling stations will prevail if there’s any discrepancy inthe results.

"We hope that the national leadership accepts thesedecisions as a sign of interest in the JCE to preserve and increase levels oftransparency that have characterized its procedures, and in addition tolistening to political parties and within the legal framework and to the extentpossible meet their requirements," Rosario said.

He added that the measure was taken to encourage a peacefulelectoral process that had been questioned by civil society and oppositionparties, which sought to completely conduct the tally electronically.