September 2012. Verifying 12 million signatures
The Venzal laboratory, along with the ICCD (Scientific Forensic Document Institute of Granada), coordinated the work of an international team of document analysts, invited by the National Electoral Council of Ecuador, for the signature verification process of all voters affiliated to political parties that were standing for election in February 2013.
The experts verified over 11 million signatures, many of which were rejected for their obvious forgery, although some were very convincing. An interesting fact: the political parties and organisations registered more than 11.5 million affiliate signatures. The population of Ecuador is barely 14.5 million.
Here are some examples of forged signatures on one of the membership forms:
We would like to send our heartfelt congratulations to the members of the CNE in Ecuador for the Council's democratic transparency throughout the signature verification process. The experience will be improved in future editions by adding stricter protocols.