The State Elections Commission (CEE, in Spanish) invested $1.3 million in modems to transmit the general election results from voting centers. However, poll workers faced numerous and widespread difficulties in transmitting these results, according to information provided by electoral workers to journalists from the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) on the night of the event and in the following days, as well as in an online survey conducted by independent journalist Bianca Graulau and shared for this investigation.

A lack of or weak wireless network signal, incomplete or irregular transmissions, and attempts to find a signal outside the polling sites summarize some of the problems reported by 60% of the surveyed officials. They indicated that they could not transmit from polling places located in schools, community centers, sports courts, universities, churches, or Head Start centers. A total of 1,092 polling officials participated in the survey.

In some voting centers, the modem was not even connected to the optical scanners used to cast ballots because, typically, there was “never any signal.”

At Gersch Academy in Guaynabo, an official reported, among other failures, that “the modem never worked, so our results were not transmitted.” She added that poll workers from the New Progressive Party (PNP, in Spanish) and the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP, in Spanish) said: “The polling stations in that unit have never been able to transmit results.”

Neither the CEE nor Claro Puerto Rico, the company contracted to provide internet services for the elections, explained why it was not possible to transmit from the voting centers on November 5.

“From our side, we confirm that there was no problem or inconvenience with our network on the day of the electoral event. It was up to the CEE to implement its protocol in case of technical problems,” said Héctor Álvarez Colón, a communications and public relations specialist at Claro Puerto Rico, in writing.

The CEE protocol is that if transmission from the voting center is impossible, it should be done from a command center, which could be a Permanent or Temporary Registration Board. Indeed, when transmission was not achieved from the polling places, it was done from these electoral command centers.

A modem must be connected to the optical scanners that cast ballots to transmit results from polling places. This device connects to an internet signal and then transmits the results to the CEE.

The modem is a device that connects to the optical scanners via a cable. According to the CEE, each of the 4,490 regular polling places had a machine and a modem.

According to documents from the Puerto Rico Office of Management and Budget, the CEE obtained 5,500 modems with 4G technology from Dominion Voting Systems for this election year. The company sold them for $240 each, plus $33,500 for shipping costs, totaling $1,287,500.

Eduardo Nieves Cartagena, director of the CEE’s Office of Information Systems and Electronic Processing (OSIPE, in Spanish), explained in a January interview with the CPI that Dominion configured the modems to meet the security requirements of the United States Election Assistance Commission.

These devices are equipped with a SIM card with a small chip that allows data collection and transmission. The CEE rented 5,000 SIM cards, along with other services, for $23,379 for two months from Claro.

Álvarez Colón from Claro Puerto Rico told the CPI in writing that the SIM cards were delivered already activated to the CEE “as soon as we received the signed contract from the State Elections Commission.” The contract was signed on October 23, 2024, less than two weeks before election day.

Eight days before the electoral material began to be sent to the precincts and amid the resumption of logic and accuracy tests, the company delivered the cards. However, it was up to authorized CEE personnel to insert the SIM cards into each modem and verify their operation, Claro Puerto Rico said.

“In my electoral unit, I convinced the PNP officials to move the machine with the modem outside the room to get the best possible signal. So, I got three signal bars, which was the maximum possible for transmission, and yet the modem did not communicate with the CEE server. My conclusion is that the modem’s SIM card (it works like a cell phone) was not active. That is, you can have a cell phone, but you need to have an active SIM card with the phone company to make calls. If it’s not active, you can’t make calls. The same goes for those modems,” said Jorge Rodríguez, one of the officials participating in the survey, who worked on election day at the community center of the Las Dalias Public Housing Complex in San Juan.

In case of any inconvenience with the SIM cards, the CEE had to contact the company’s staff, said Álvarez Colón from Claro Puerto Rico. He added that company personnel were present at the CEE’s central offices, “providing immediate support, and no problems with our network were reported.”

The CPI unsuccessfully tried to get a reaction from the CEE on whether it was verified that each SIM card was activated and installed correctly.

This year, the modems had antennas.

“This (modem) has three data transmission attempts, and in none of the attempts could it transmit. This is extremely rare considering it has a very good antenna, there was internet at the location, and all phones had a signal,” shared Ishi Maldonado, an official at the Republic of Colombia School in San Juan. “The PNP/PPD officials took this as normal, saying things like ‘there’s no signal,’ ‘it never transmits,’ without showing any concern or shock that the machine didn’t transmit. Almost as if it was expected (that it wouldn’t transmit).”

Voting centers with transmission issues can be anticipated

If it wanted to, the CEE could know in advance which voting centers would fail to transmit election results, according to the explanation given by Nieves Cartagena, director of the CEE’s OSIPE.

“[The company Claro] has the geolocated positioning of all the voting centers that are provided to them. They used it previously with their coverage cloud and informed us at each voting centers of the potential to transmit. That data is available beforehand,” Nieves Cartagena said in response to questions from the CPI at a press conference in late September. The CEE never specified which voting centers had poor coverage and whether they asked Claro to improve it in those places.

Nieves Cartagena said in September that the data “[Claro] gives us to say where there is transmission or not is based on empirical data and statistical studies, not specific measurements at each part of Puerto Rico.”

Of the 661 officials participating in the survey who said they could not transmit from the polling place where they worked, at least 38 reported that none of the polling places at their voting center managed to transmit.

“None of the three polling places in my unit could process the results, and none of the polling places were given the bag for the machine’s memory. We had to put it in another bag that was locked inside the (cardboard) suitcases,” said an official at the Jesús T. Piñero Jiménez School in Caguas. In each suitcase that arrives at the polling places, there is supposed to be a small transparent plastic bag to place one of the machine’s memories that must be delivered to the local electoral commission.

The CPI asked Claro which voting centers were identified as having difficulty in their transmission potential and what solutions were in place to mitigate this situation. The company did not disclose them. It only said that “the CEE did not make additional requests outside of what was stipulated in the contract” to require “solutions in voting centers with poor coverage.”

“Therefore, any action to address issues related to the machines and data transmission was handled according to the protocols established by the CEE,” the company said in writing. It added, “We will not issue additional comments on the matter, as it is up to the State Elections Commission.”

The CEE has refused to address the CPI’s questions about this issue of the lack of transmission of results on election day.

Is it worth buying modems?

According to Nieves Cartagena in September, usually half of the regular polling places do not transmit results from their locations. Although requested, the CEE   did not explain why it invested $1.3 million in modems if it knew in advance that they would not work in half of the voting centers.

“The historical data is that half of the data transfer from a voting center occurs at a frequency of about 50%,” said Nieves Cartagena. “Everything you have seen, in an event where regular polling places transmit remotely, half or more do so from an electoral command center, not from the voting center,” he added.

Claro was the internet service provider for this year’s electoral events, as well as in 2020 and 2016. AT&T was also present in 2016.

At the local Permanent Registration Boards, results can be transmitted through the alternate Results Transfer Manager system from a computer connected to the internet. The memory card is inserted into a reader connected to the computer and transmitted.

On November 7, 2024, the CPI asked the CEE how many of the 4,490 regular polling places did not transmit results from their voting locations or through the alternate system and the reasons for being unable to transmit. None of the questions were answered.

The United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC) recommends caution with the use of modems to transmit results on the night of the event, as the data or devices could be compromised by viruses or malicious computer codes that alter or interrupt processes.

“These modems should not be connected or enabled until all other operations on the voting device have been completed, such as closing polls and printing results from each device,” reads the EAC’s 2023 guide.

The CEE’s 2024 General Elections and Scrutiny Procedures Manual states that the modem will be connected to the optical scanners after the election is closed and the polling station’s scrutiny record is printed.

However, on election day, Roberto Otero, an observer from the American Civil Liberties Union, Puerto Rico Chapter, noted that the modem at polling station 5, at the Perpetuo Socorro Academy in San Juan, was connected from the start of operations. Official Luis Rodríguez Mateo also commented on this in the online survey.

One of the manual’s appendices, which officials should use to guide them through the transmission process, illustrates the steps for transmitting results. However, the appendices’ pages are out of sequence, which is confusing. They show a Claro-brand modem when, in reality, a MultiTech-brand device was used.

“Since the modem was connected, it never fully uploaded, and it seemed strange to me since they were completely different modems from previous times. We tried to transmit six times, and none could be completed despite the machine indicating that the modem was connected correctly,” said an official at Rafael Cordero School in Barrio La Gloria in Trujillo Alto.

Other irregularities

Some poll workers reported irregular figures in the results. Grace Reyes Márquez, an official at the National Talent Academy in Bayamón, said that her polling place reported “ridiculously high” vote numbers. According to CEE data, 448 registered voters were present at her polling place for these elections. However, after several attempts to transmit the results, “9,000” votes appeared for the New Progressive Party candidate, Jenniffer González, and “6,000” for the Puerto Rican Independence Party candidate, Juan Dalmau.

In the online survey, several officials commented that the markers sent by the CEE to use on the ballots arrived dry or were not enough. Similarly, the lamps used to check the ink on fingers when leaving the polling stations did not work or ran out of power, and the officials did not have the batteries.