Academia.eduAcademia.edu

Outline

E-voting: International developments and lessons learnt

Electronic Voting in Europe Technology, Law, Politics …

https://doi.org/10.5445/IR/1000081810

Abstract

Countries worldwide are carrying growing interest in e-voting. The paper gives a brief overview on recent developments. The countries are joined in their interest by industry and international organisations. All three groups of actors-and individual actors within each group-have different and sometimes diverging reasons for their interest, and thus different goals. The paper focuses on remote / i[nternet]-voting. Member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) are in their final phase of standard-setting on e-voting. The paper provides a preview on a possible CoE recommendation. As the number of e-voting tests is growing, so are the lessons learnt. The paper contains a list of suggestions on ways how best to introduce (remote) e-voting. 1 Growing attention to e-voting E-Voting has been attracting considerable attention during the last years. This fact is based on the one hand upon interest and attention devoted to e-government, edemocracy, e-governance, etc. On the other hand, interest in e-voting is founded in problems with domestic election systems, e.g. lacking flexibility with respect to timeframes and physical accessibility of polling stations, which progressively prevent citizens to cast their vote at these places. Interest in e-voting exists in various quarters: government, parliaments, electorate, academia and industry-with each having sometimes conflicting interests. They can differ with respect, e.g., to speed, individual leadership, safety, user friendliness, etc.

References (18)

  1. Commission on Electronic Voting: Secrecy, Accuracy and Testing of the Chosen Electronic Voting System. Dublin, 2004, available at http://www.cev.ie/htm/report/V02.pdf accessed on 2004-04-01.
  2. Chevallier, M.: Internet voting: Status; perspectives and Issues, ITU E-Government Workshop, Geneva, 6 June 2003, available at: http://www.geneve.ch/chancellerie/E- Government/doc/UIT_6_6_03_web.ppt accessed on 2004-04-02.
  3. Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL): Délibération n o 03- 036 du 1 er juillet 2003 portant adoption d'une recommandation relative à la sécurité des systèmes de vote électronique, http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=1356&delib[uid]=12&cHash=d4482266b8 accessed on 2004-03-10.
  4. Council of Europe: Meeting of the national correspondents on e-voting, Meeting Report, CoE doc. no. IP1 (2002) 29e fin
  5. Conseil supérieur des Français de l'étranger -CSFE: Rapport du Directeur des Français à l'étranger et des étrangers en France, 2003, Ministère des affaires étrangères, Paris, 2003.
  6. European Commission for Democracy Through Law: Code of Good Practice in Election Matters, October 2002, CoE doc. no. CDL-AD (2002) 23
  7. European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), Report on the Compatibility of Remote Voting and Electronic Voting with the Requirements of the Documents of the Council of Europe, on the basis of a contribution by Mr. Christoph Grabenwarter (substitute member, Austria), 12-13 March 2004; Doc. CDL-AD(2004)012 -http://www.venice.coe.int/docs/2004/CDL-AD(2004)012-e.pdf available on 2004-04-02.
  8. Chief Information Office, e-government strategy of the Austrian government and explanatory text (in German only), Vienna 2003, available at www.cio.gv.at/service/conferences/graz_2003/e-Gov_Broschuere.pdf accessed on 2004-02-10.
  9. Federal Act on Provisions Facilitating Electronic Communication with Public Bodies (E-Government Act), http://ris1.bka.intra.gv.at/authentic/findbgbl.aspx? name=entwurf&format=html&docid=COO_2026_100_2_30412 (official publication, in German) -the official text in English: www.ris.bka.gv.at/erv/erv_2004_1_10.pdf accessed on 2004-02-10.
  10. The Geneva E-Voting Project, http://www.geneve.ch/chancellerie/E-Government/e- voting.html accessed on 2004-05-04
  11. Jefferson D.; Rubin A.D.; Simons B.; Wagner D.: A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE), January 20, 2004, available at www.servesecurityreport.org accessed on 2004-03-30.
  12. McGaley M.; Gibson J.P.: Electronic Voting: A Safety Critical System; Department of Computer Science, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, March 2003, www.cs.may.ie/research/reports/2003/nuim-cs-tr-2003-02.pdf, accessed on 2004-03- 30.
  13. Ministerio del Interior, Dirección General de Política Interior, Subdirección General de Política Interior y Processos Electorales: Electronic voting trials using internet at the general election held on March 14 in Spain, Nota informativa, Barcelona, 2003.
  14. Austrian Computer Society (OCG): E-Voting Action Plan, text in German, Vienna, 2003, available at http://www.e-voting.at/main.php?ID=58 accessed on 2004-02-10.
  15. Prosser, A., Kofler, R., Krimmer, R., Unger, M.: First Internet Election in Austria, Vienna, 2003, available at http://www.e-voting.at/main.php?ID=53,
  16. SCYTL: Elections to the Parliament of Catalonia 2003, Report on the Remote Electronic Voting Pootl, Scytl Online World Security, Barcelona, 2003 [SERV04] SERVE USA: Internet Voting Project, 2004. http://www.serveusa.gov/public/aca.aspx, accessed on 2004-04-15.
  17. The Electoral Commission: The shape of the elections to come, London, 2003.
  18. The Electoral Commission: The Electoral pilots at June 2004 elections, 2004, http://www.electoralcommission.gov.uk/templates/search/document.cfm/8941 accessed on 2004-04-30.