39 hours after closing the polling stations CDEC has not processed 9% of the ballots

39 hours after closing the polling stations the Chisinau District Election Council (CDEC) hasn’t managed to process 9% of the ballots, most of them from Chisinau’s suburbs. CDEC is still using preliminary data, made public on Monday morning. On Monday afternoon a source within CDEC said that the tabulation was disrupted because of a computer failure. Asked by Info-Prim Neo, CDEC Secretary Aliona Cazacu denied the rumours about the computer failure, saying that the hold-up is caused by the large number of ballot papers, the delay in bringing the ballots from the suburban localities, and CDEC representatives’ need for a break. In her words, the results from the suburbs were not sent via the Internet, instead the chairmen of the polling stations brought the records and the ballot papers to CDEC. The secretary said that most probably the preliminary results from the suburbs will be processed by Tuesday evening. A number of experts told the agency that delay relates to the low capacity of the computing machines rather than to a potential breakdown. They assume that not only is the equipment used by CDEC and the Central Election Commission (CEC) outdated, but also the chosen provider is not one of the best. In the experts’ opinion, the technical and communication resources used by CDEC and CEC are insufficient, which leaves room for suspicion that during such a long time lag between closing the ballot boxes and sending the data, falsifications are possible.