Electronic voting has begun to burst into small terrains that smooth its path to integration. Through the familiarization with voters, some political organizations’ try-outs have achieved an approach to technology.
At the end of this month and the next, there are two experiences in Latin America that will test voting automation, albeit at a small scale.
The first test will take place in Panama, next August 26, where the opposition party PRD will choose its board of directors at a general congress. The election will be carried out through electronic voting. The Electoral Court has already installed the automated system in the Bocas del Toro province, where the meeting of the PRD will take place. 4200 delegates will test the technological platform.
Panama has already contemplated in its General Election Plan, published this May, the implementation of e-voting in multi-member circuits for the 2014 elections, as well as a reengineering of the polling stations.
So far, authorities have only disclosed that automation will be implemented at a low level, as the process will take place periodically. However, it is worth mentioning that Panama joined the Latin American elite with automated elections last year, when it became an example of inclusion for the region and the world, as it chose an indigenous region as the first locale to use voting technology to vote.
E-voting will be used in Peru at a recall referendum. Source: http://www.eleccionesenperu.com
The second experience will take place in Peru, in the district of Pacarán (Cañete province, Lima), where a recall referendum will be held on September 30th. In 2011, voting technology was applied during the presidential runoff with a technological solution designed and manufactured in its entirety by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE, for its acronym in Spanish). The prototype of the machine used was made by the ONPE in association with the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and the National University of San Marcos.
digitalvote.wordpress.com 
In Panama, the e-voting scheme was anything, but a disappointment for anybody who believed in it. Only 4100 people were registered to vote (it was an internal party vote to choose its dirigents), and the delays were more than double the original estimates. Of course, there are fraud allegations all over. The country has ruled out any possibility to deploy electronic voting for the national election in 2014.
Manual voting will always provide more confidence, more accountability – And as this case shows, it’s often even far quicker to vote than via a computer.
Digital vote proponents are, of course, blaming the lack of capacitation by the voters – How much capacitation do you need to perform a regular, manual vote? None whatsoever!