BOLIVIA: IRREGULARITIES IN ID AND VOTER ROLLS

C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 001658 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/01/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL BL SUBJECT: BOLIVIA: IRREGULARITIES IN ID AND VOTER ROLLS Classified By: A/EcoPol Chief Brian Quigley reasons 1.4b, d ¶1. (C) Summary: Concerns are rising over the trustworthiness of Bolivia's voter rolls in the lead-up to the August 10 recall referenda. A Venezuelan-funded free ID-card program is seen as partisan and riddled with errors. Individual departments are announcing large numbers of irregularities in their voter rolls (including individuals who are listed more than one time and therefore might be able to vote more than once.) National Electoral Court President Jose Exeni claims, however, that the voter rolls are 98 percent accurate and that there is no chance of voter fraud on August 10. In the end, the damage may be only the tarnishing of the electoral system's image, but even that is something Bolivia cannot afford at the moment. End summary. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "I exist, Bolivia exists"--but does my ID exist? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶2. (C) Chochabamba Congresswoman Ninoska Lazarte (PODEMOS) is raising concerns about the possibility of fraud due to irregularities in Bolivia's free ID-card program "I exist, Bolivia exists", run by former Venezuelan officials Dante Rivas and Orlando Urbina. Based on studies provided to Bolivian authorities, the free ID-card program was clearly riddled with inefficiency and errors. In addition, the data compiled under the Venezuelan-funded program are not completely compatible with the Voter Registration rolls, portending serious problems when the Venezuelans hand over the data for inclusion in voter rolls. - - - - - - - - - - A Tragedy of Errors - - - - - - - - - - ¶3. (C) On Wednesday July 30, Lazarte presented to various members of the diplomatic corps a collection of documents and a timeline outlining her concerns about the free ID-card program funded by Venezuela. Alleging collusion between the program's Venezuelan organizers and President Morales' Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) sympathizers, she lists a series of confrontations between the Bolivian agencies traditionally in charge of ID-cards and the Venezuelans, whom she says were given full authority to act as they pleased. She also claims that both of the primary Venezuelan organizers were accused of fraud during their tenure in the ID-programs of Venezuela. (Note: According to press reports, Dante Rivas was the former Director of Venezuela's National Office of Identification and Alienism. Orlando Urbina formerly worked for the Technical and Systems Directory of the Presidency in Venezuela. End note.) ¶4. (C) Lazarte listed the following problems with the free ID program. --Because personal ID files cannot be shared with foreign nationals, the Venezuelan-funded and -led ID program was not given full access to existing civil registries, so there was no way to check if ID-card applicants already had cards. --Nevertheless, civil service employees were found to be sharing civil registries with Venezuelan counterparts, thus opening the possibility of inappropriate knowledge sharing with a foreign government. --In the first phase in the MAS-stronghold "Plan 3000" in Santa Cruz, ex-felons were seen lining up to get new ID cards and ID numbers. Cards were also issued without the proper documentation. --When the free ID-card records were demanded by the National Director of Personal Identification, National Police Colonel Raul Roche Escobar, his technical team discovered that many of the new ID-cards have no picture, or illegal pictures (for example of more than one person),or pictures of computer cables, or clearly-fake pictures and data presumably entered during a training phase and never deleted, and yet these records have ID numbers associated as if they are legitimate cards. --The same technical study showed that, possibly due to user-error, many of the new cards were issued with the same ID number (ID numbers should be unique to each person, like U.S. social security numbers). --The same study showed that the codification of professions, locations and other parameters are not directly compatible with parameters used by the National Personal Identification directory (which will cause problems when the two archives must be combined.) --The same study found that approximately 40,000 records could not be recovered because of equipment and software problems. --Despite security issues, the free ID-card records were kept in laptops and not backed-up, suggesting that some records may have been lost, leaving ID-cards without records to back them up. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Departments Discover Errors, Too - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶5. (C) When individual departments undertook "purification" checks to examine the new ID rolls, more errors were discovered. Police in Chuquisaca found duplicates and IDs that had been issued to Peruvians. The Department of La Paz announced that it had found at least 40,000 irregularities in the electoral roll of the department, including 25,000 cases of more than one person with the same ID number and 15,000 cases of people with more than one ID card. Citing the example of two men with similar names and the same ID number--one of whom is a convicted rapist--the La Paz spokesman said, "The system of information in Bolivia has collapsed completely." ¶6. (C) La Paz department legal advisor Eduardo Leon announced on July 31 that on August 4 the department will present a criminal complaint against National Electoral Court Exeni and Departmental Court members. He said that his previous concerns about the voter rolls had been dismissed by the National Electoral Court: "They confirmed to us that these people (with registry irregularities) in principle will not be cleared from the rolls and have the right to vote." Leon warned that cases of irregularities "will triple" when the national electoral rolls are revised in the next few days. - - - - - - - - - - - - Possible Partisan Bias - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶7. (C) A number of critics of the government have pointed out that the free ID-card campaigns were concentrated in strongly pro-MAS areas such as the coca-growing Chapare and in MAS strongholds in opposition-led departments. To some extent, this focus of a free ID-card program is inevitable: the people who need free ID cards are generally poor and therefore likely to be MAS supporters. Low participation in the opposition departments of Tarija, Pando, and Beni could merely be a result of the smaller population of these departments. However, the free ID campaign has in many areas been clearly linked with pro-MAS and pro-Evo statements. For example, Congresswoman Lazarte provided a CD of pictures showing free ID-card registration efforts run out of MAS headquarters and juxtaposed signs saying, "Get your free ID" and "Vote 'Yes' for Evo." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Will Gross Inefficiency Lead to Fraud? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ¶8. (C) It is unclear whether the free ID program's endemic problems will affect the elections. Because voters are marked with indelible ink, people who have obtained two ID cards should not be able to vote twice. Voters must be listed in the national voter rolls; therefore, people who obtained an ID-card but have not yet been entered into the voter rolls will not be eligible to vote. National Electoral Court President Jose Exeni claims that Bolivia's voter rolls are 98 percent trustworthy, a number which he says puts Bolivia ahead of Ecuador and Venezuela's elections that were ratified by international observers. Opposition politicians are crying foul, however, alleging purposeful fraud and suggesting that, come August 10, ID-cards graced with photos of computer cables and landscapes will be used at the ballot boxes to support Evo. - - - - Comment - - - - ¶9. (C) Whereas it is fairly clear that the free ID-card program funded by Venezuela was intended to increase the numbers of potential voters supporting President Evo Morales, the inefficiency and errors of the program may have decreased the benefit Evo stood to gain: ID-cards with illegal pictures, duplicate numbers, or mistaken names will haunt the civil registers for many years in the future, possibly disenfranchising those whom the program was designed to help. At a time when domestic confidence in the Bolivian electoral system is wavering, the daily revelations of ID-card errors are further damaging Bolivians' trust in their institutions. A program of free or subsidized registration leading to greater enfranchisement of Bolivia's poor is a worthwhile and useful aim. Sadly, mismanagement and clear partisan bias have tainted the attempt. End comment. GOLDBERG