The State Electoral Commission announced on Nov. 21 that Rock Solid, the information technology company in charge of the elections, had miscalculated the results. The story ran on a local paper and confirmed reports published on Metro San Juan’s November issue.

The MSJ story “Ready to Roll?” by Arts & Culture Editor Huáscar Robles revealed that problems with Rock Solid’s software had persisted since the March local primaries. Officials at the Office of Information Systems and Electronic Procession (OSIPE, for its acronym in Spanish) insisted that the problems had been corrected, and SEC President Ramón Gómez blamed the electoral college employees if delays occurred.

New Progressive Party’s Electoral Commissioner, Edwin Mundo, told MSJ that Rock Solid’s software had not performed well under preliminary tests done one month before elections, and that Gómez was looking for a scapegoat if Rock Solid failed. “We know that the company they hired, Rock Solid, is not ready for the event,” he predicted.

Robles’s report also stated the SEC tried to replace Rock Solid with IBM, who had handled the election results for 10 years, but couldn’t. OSIPE’S Director Julio Vélez admitted that the SEC had attempted to bring IBM back, but it “was too late [to take over the operations]. Mundo stated that the SEC simply couldn’t cover the transition costs, estimated at about $1 million.

Rock Solid’s miscalculation of results led the Puerto Ricans for Puerto Rico Party (PPR) to believe they had reached the 3 percent of votes needed to maintain their electoral franchise.

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