Belgian Parliamentary Debate

Tomorrow the Belgian Parliament will start the debate on the future of its e-voting system. After a report developed by an academic consortium and other inputs, like the report of the Council of Europe, the Parliament has to decide whether to upgrade the current system or to implement another one.

VI Votobit

Next week (thursday and friday) Buenos Aires will host the VI edition of the VOTOBIT, our International Meeting about Electronic Voting. The Votobits have been done in Spain for three times (León 2002 & 2003, Tarragona, 2007) and twice in Mexico (Torreón, 2005 & Monterrey, 2007).

This time we count with the great cooperation from the local authorities of Buenos Aires, and the event will follow our traditional multidimensional approach: sociopolitical, legal and technical. The speakers include Lawrence Norden (Brennan Center at the NYU, USA), Mario Torre (GST, Venezuela), Maria Inés Tula (Conicet, Argentina), Alejandro González (IEPCC, Mexico), as well as different top level argentinian politicians and public servants who will discuss the pros & cons of e-voting.

Obviously we'd like to invite all of you (no fees), to share your knowledge and opinions with us in Buenos Aires.

E-elección a Rector de la UPV/EHU

Las elecciones a Rector de la Universidad del País Vasco empleando el sistema Demotek se celebrarán en una sola vuelta al concurrir únicamente un candidato. La elección se realizará en los Campus de Araba-Alava, Bizkaia y Gipuzkoa por sufragio universal y voto ponderado con un censo de cerca de 55.000 electores distribuidos en cuatro Sectores universitarios: SA (Profesores-Doctores Permanentes), SB (Otro personal docente), SC (Estudiates) y SD (Personal de Administración y Servicios).
La votación electrónica tendrá lugar el 22 de mayo en 38 Colegios y 73 Mesas electorales que requerirá el uso de 96 urnas electrónicas y la confección de 350.000 papeletas.

E-voting: the last electoral revolution (Just published!)

We're glad to present you our new (just published!) collective book:
E-voting: the last electoral revolution. Barcelona, ICPS, 2008. ISBN: 978-84-608-0728-5.

The book is the result of an International Workshop held in Barcelona last year and sponsored jointly by our research project and the ICPS.

Table of contents:

1. The development of remote electronic voting in Europe, by R. Krimmer
2. There is more to e- than meets the eye: towards automated voting in Italy, by L. Caporusso
3. Legal and political aspects of the Internet voting: Estonian case, by U. Madise
4. First steps in the regulation of Internet voting in French electoral legislation, by R. Fernández & E. González
5. Electronic voting certification procedures. Who should carry out the technical analysis?, by J. Barrat
6. Auditing e-voting pilot processes and systems at the elections for the European Parliament and for the Portuguese Parliament, by J. Falcao et al.
7. Is electronic voting functional?, by M.A. Presno
8. Doubts and certainties about electronic voting, by J.M. Reniu

To get a copy please contact the ICPS publications service HERE.

Spanish New eVoting Platform

P.I.V.E. (Plataforma Individual de Voto Electrónico) is the name of this new e-voting platform developed by the Spanish Ministry of Interior. After some pilots in 2004 and 2005, the Spanish government seemed to stop its e-voting projects and there have been no pilots during the last electoral period one month ago, but actually an internal task force has been analyzing the feasibilty of e-voting solutions. The last TECNIMAP Conference included the presentation of its report (paper).

View Upload your own

Belgium / Council of Europe

Besides the national report of the academic Consortium, the Belgian Government has also uploaded the report of the Council of Europe on the Belgian new e-voting system. I took part in this task as an external consultant and it was very interesting to analyze a system that is upgrading after a decade in use.

Seminar on Information Technology in the Electoral Process

Our colleague and friend Robert Krimmer launches a very interesting event: a Seminar on Information Technology in the Electoral Process, to be held next May in Krems (Austria).

"Electronic Voting is part of the future of voting. While e-voting systems are partly in use since the 1960s, nowadays there is a serious public debate over the introduction of E-Voting as an extension of the conventional voting channels.
To provide a guideline in this controversial discussion E-Voting.CC offers a two-day Seminar on Information Technology in the Electoral Process in cooperation with the Danube University in Krems. It will take place on the 26th & 27th of May 2008 in Krems, Autria.

The seminar adresses employees of public administration and public service, politically engaged persons, and people with general interest in recent developments of e-voting. The target of the Seminar is to give the participants a profound understanding on the ongoing developments in order to improve their professional skills in this constantly developing field.

Module 1: Understanding of legal basics and electoral engineering

Module 2: Workflow & election design, comparison of European, national and local legal fundamentals.

Module 3: Technological challenges of electronic elections.

Module 4: Implementing E-voting, technical aspects, election observation of electronic voting processes.

Further information: Download the brochure.

If you are interested in participating in the seminar, please send us an email with your name, address, occupation and the name and address of the organization you are working for. For any questions please contact us at office@e-voting.cc.
We are looking forward to your registration!"

Belgian Study on e-voting

Do not miss the last study on e-voting. Belgium, as one of the first countries which used information technologies in elections, has put to order a study about electronic voting systems. A consortium of seven Belgian universities analyzed internationally available electronic voting systems in order to decide which one would be most suitable as a successor of the outdated Belgian system. The study was planned to be released in September 2007 but due to delays it has been released in the beginning of January 2008 by .
Content of study 1:
The first part of the study derives the current state of the art of electronic and Internet voting in all aspects. It compares the voting systems of Belgium, Estonia, Switzerland, Ireland, The Netherlands, France and Germany.
Content of study 2:
The second part shall provide the technical and specific requirements for the technical appendix to the ?cahier des charges? for the Belgian voting system planned for 2009 and onward.
The study is now available in English:

http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/user_upload/Elections/fr/presentation/bevoting-1_gb.pdf
http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/user_upload/Elections/fr/presentation/bevoting-2_gb.pdf

and in French:
http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/user_upload/Elections/fr/presentation/bevoting-1_fr.pdf
http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/user_upload/elections_post_07/fr/presentation/bevoting-2_fr.pdf

The real "pijama voting", :p

As I always talk about e-voting as "pijama voting", don't miss the "real" implementation of that according to some dutch politics...

See it!

Thanks Robert!

Interview to Indra's Electoral CEO

Here you are an interesting interview to the CEO of the Indra's Electoral Section claiming for a reform to the Spanish electoral law in order to implement e-voting. Unfortunately, there also are other important barriers like, for instance, the consequences of some bad pilot experiences carried out during previous elections.

Interview:
http://www.elmundo.es/navegante/2008/02/20/tecnologia/1203493891.html