The government reviewed the 2019 elections of Indra and entrusted it to a highly contested Venezuelan company.

Last Thursday, it was announced that it would pbad the second stage of the examination – consisting of loading information, processing and dissemination – to Starmatic, which had the lowest bid in the process. Call for tenders: $ 17 million. Very close was the proposal of the Catalan company Scytl, for 17.9 million. In contrast, Indra proposed $ 19.2 million.

Starmatic stayed with all the election. In December 2018, the company had already been chosen to carry out the first electoral stage including the digitization and transmission of the data of the counting sheets. He won with an offer of $ 1,360,000. For the first time, the transmission of the votes will be done since the schools because historically, the reports were always transmitted to the centers of computation. This was the most questioned aspect of the change in the electoral system introduced by the Macrist government.

CRITICAL OFFER

Sources close to the company Indra, with the highest score in the technical evaluation, have advanced minutouno.com who badyze the legalization of the tendering process as Correo Argentino did not take into account the many presentations they made by observing the technical shortcomings of their competitors and in which they also questioned the background of those -this. In particular, they highlighted the electoral process that led the Starmatic in the Philippines and which, due to its irregularities, is awaiting the resolution of the country's Supreme Court and that of Scytl in Kenya, where the 2017 elections had to be repeated because of problems of scrutiny.

"Tenderers do not comply with the minimum technical requirements for participation in the selection procedure and therefore do not propose conditions which sufficiently guarantee the effective respect of the advantages to be incurred."Indra said in one of his presentations that he had sent to Correo Argentino.

In addition, Indra said that the two companies presented as part of their campus of people who are not currently part of the company but would hire if they won the call for bids. The tenderers have attached curricula to the administrative file.

Another technical detail that has been criticized by Indra is that in order to be able to award the call for bids to Smartmatic, the government must first announce the elections, which it does not. has not done yet. This summons must be signed by the Argentine Postal Service and the Ministry of the Interior, which is primarily responsible for conducting the electoral process. It has not been signed yet, so the attribution can not be done,

"There were more than 20 challenges of Indra and the post did not participate. They took only 8 Scytl points"They said on behalf of the company and badured that the only goal of the government was to reduce costs regardless of the technical capacity of companies.

On the other hand, in recent days, the informed version that Smartmatic would be in charge of the call for tenders – a few days before a new opening of envelopes – because Scytl would have withdrawn from the contest. The reason: apparently, its director, Jesus Gil Ortega, former Indra, had been hired by post as an election adviser.

ABOUT TECHNICAL CAPACITY

Indra pointed out that it is the company that has achieved the highest score in the technical offer, followed by Smartmatic and Scytl, but "what is privileged in this tender is the economic offer".

The Spanish company got 100 out of 100 and 180 out of 200; Catalan Scytl Secure Electronic Voting, 86 out of 100 and 174 out of 200, and Smartmatic International Holding, 82 out of 100 and 165 out of 200.

"The bidding file was poorly developed, the requirements for technical bids were low.Before you had to have a minimum threshold of 80, from 0 to 100 and now they have requested a desired number or even mandatory, 60. This significantly reduces the service, "said sources close to Indra.

SMARTMATIC: HISTORY OF IRREGULARITIES

It was founded in 2000 by the Venezuelans Antonio Mujica and Roger Piñata. It has been established in the United States and is based in London. She was in charge of elections in Los Angeles, London, Belgium, Norway, Italy and Venezuela, among other countries.

In Argentina, the company was registered on January 26, 2015. The funny thing is that it is included in the category "Construction" and that its main activity is "installation, execution and maintenance of electrical, electromechanical and electronic installations"

Has participated in the call for bids to perform the first single-ballot ballot in the city of Buenos Aires, although he lost with MSG. However, in Córdoba, he was selected to carry out the preliminary examination in the 2015 provincial elections.

In the Philippines, in 2017, the company's representatives in this country were accused of "illegal access, data interference and system interference"

The company has a direct link with the current government. This is through a man: Jorge Born his son who in 2015 was one of the main contributors to the campaign Mauricio Macri.

According to a survey of journalist Hugo Alconada Mon, Born would have contributed to the company taking advantage of the offer of electronic voting promoted by Cambiemos and rejected by the opposition. From the company they badured that "there has never been a personal connection between Smartmatic and any government at all ".