Electronic voting examples
Encyclopedia
The following is a list of examples of electronic voting
from elections around the world. Examples include polling place voting electronic voting and Internet voting.
in 1995 when they ran a web based vote regarding the French nuclear testing in the Pacific region. The resulting petition was delivered to the French government on a Syquest removable hard disk.
In October 2001 electronic voting was used for the first time in an Australian parliamentary election. In that election, 16,559 voters (8.3% of all votes counted) cast their votes electronically at polling stations in four places. The Victorian State Government introduced electronic voting on a trial basis for the 2006 State election.
s in 29 locations.
started in 1991. It is widely used in Belgium for general and municipal elections and has been since 1999.
s and Internet voting are common.
began in October 2005 local elections when Estonia
became the first country to have legally binding general elections using the Internet as a means of casting the vote and was declared a success by the Estonian election officials.
In 2005 Estonia became the first country to offer Internet voting nationally in local elections. 9,317 people voted online.
In 2007 Estonia held its and the world's first National Internet election. Voting was available from February 26 to 28. A total of 30,275 citizens used Internet voting.
In the 2009 local municipal elections, 104,415 people voted over the Internet. This means that roughly 9,5% of the persons with the right to vote gave their vote over the Internet.
In the 2011 parliamentary elections between 24 February and March 2, 140,846 people cast their votes online. 96% of the electronic votes were cast in Estonia and 4% by Estonian citizens residing in 106 foreign countries.
, Kauniainen
and Vihti
). While the government still considers the pilot program a success, 232 voters encountered a usability flaw resulting in their votes not being registered. Because of the uncounted votes, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland
ordered new elections in these municipalities.
party held a national presidential primary using both remote electronic voting and with 750 polling stations using touch screen electronic voting over the Internet. The election resulted in over 230,000 votes representing a near 70% turnout.
Elections in France
utilized remote Internet voting for the first time in 2003 when French citizens living in the United States elected their representatives to the Assembly of French Citizens Abroad
. Over 60% of voters chose to vote using the Internet rather than paper. The Forum des droits sur l'Internet (Internet rights forum), published a recommendation on the future of electronic voting in France, stating that French citizens abroad should be able to use Internet voting for Assembly of the French Citizens Abroad elections. This recommendation became reality in 2009, with 6000 French citizens choosing to make use of the system.
. About 2000 of them have been used in the 2005 Bundestag
elections covering approximately 2 million voters. These machines differ only in certain details due to different voting systems from the ES3B hacked by a Dutch citizen group and the Chaos Computer Club
on October 5, 2006. Because of this, additional security measures have been applied in the municipality elections on 22. October 2006 in Cottbus
, including reading the software from the EPROM
to compare it with the source and sealing the machines afterwards. The city of Cottbus ultimately decided not to purchase the Nedap voting system it had previously been leasing.
At the moment there are several lawsuits in court against the use of electronic voting machines in Germany
. One of these reached the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
in February 2007. Critics cite a lack transparency when recording the votes as intended by the voter and concerns relating to recounts. The certified Nedap
machines are DRE
systems which do not produce any paper records.
Following a 2005 pilot study during the national elections, wide public support and a unianimous decision by the Senate launched a plan for the implementation of an optical scan voting system
based on digital paper
in the 2008 state elections of Hamburg
. After unsubstantiated public claims is September 2007 by the Fraktion der Grünen/GAL and the Chaos Computer Club
that the system vulnerable, the National Election Office (Landeswahlamtes) found in public surveys that while the systems usability was widely accepted, public distrust of the system was evident. Due to concerns over public confidence plans for use of the new voting system have been canceled. However, the Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) will continue the certification process of the Digital Pen.
Electronic voting was first introduced in 1982 and was used on an experimental basis in the North Parur assembly constituency in the State of Kerala. However the Supreme Court of India struck down this election as against the law in A C Jose v. Sivan Pillai case. Amendments were made to the Representation of Peoples Act to legalise elections using Electronic Voting Machines. In 2003, all state elections and by-elections were held using EVMs.
The EVMs were also used during the national elections held for the Indian Parliament in 2004 and 2009. According to the statistics available through the mainstream media, more than 400 million voters (about 60% of India's eligible voters) exercised their franchise through EVMs in 2009 elections. Tallying such a large number of votes took just a few hours.
The Election Commission of India is amply satisfied about the non-tamperability and the fool-proof working of the EVMs. The Commission’s confidence in the efficacy of the EVMs has been fortified by the judgments of various courts and the views of technical experts. The honorable Karnataka High Court has hailed the EVM as ‘a national pride’ (judgment dated 5.2.2004 in Michael B. Fernandes Vs C.K.Jaffer Sharief and others in E.P No 29 of 1999). The Election commission issued a press brief after the Indian general elections 2009 clarifying the same
for about €40 million. The machines were used on a 'pilot' basis in 3 constituencies for the 2002 Irish general election
and a referendum on the Treaty of Nice
. Following a public report by the Commission on Electronic Voting, then Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Martin Cullen
again delayed the use of the machines
On 23 April 2009, the Minister for the Environment John Gormley
announced that the electronic voting system was to be scrapped by an as of yet undetermined method, due to cost and the public's dissatisfaction with the current system.
On 6 October 2010, the Taoiseach
Brian Cowen
said that the 7,000 machines would not be used for voting and would be disposed of. As of October 2010, the total cost of the electronic voting project has reached €54.6 million, including €3 million spent on storing the machines over the previous five years.
During the same elections (April 2006) the Ministry of New Technologies in cooperation with two big American companies organized a pilot only concerning e-counting. The experiment involved four regions and it cost 34 million of euro.
use electronic voting in polling places. The most widely used voting machines are produced by the company Nedap
. In the parliamentary elections of 2006, 21,000 persons will be using the to cast their vote.
On 5. October 2006 the group "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" ("We do not trust voting machines") demonstrated on Dutch television how the Nedap ES3B machines could be manipulated in 5 minutes. The exchange of the software would not be recognisable by voters or election officials.
Apparently there was a case of an election official misinforming voters of when their vote is recorded and later recording it himself during municipality elections in Landerd
, Netherlands in 2006. A candidate was also an election official and got the unusual amount of 181 votes in the polling place where he was working. In the other three polling places together he got 11 votes. Only circumstantial evidence
could be found because the voting machine was a direct-recording electronic voting machine
, in a poll by a local newspaper the results were totally different. The case is still under prosecution.
Van Eck phreaking
might also compromise the secrecy of the votes in an election using electronic voting. This made the Dutch government ban the use of computer voting machines manufactured by SDU in the 2006 national elections, fearing that secret ballot
s may not be kept secret.
In September 2007 a committee chaired by Korthals Altes
reported for the government that it would be better to return to paper voting. The deputy minister for interior Bijleveld
said in a first response she would accept the committee's advice, and ban electronic voting. The committee also concluded that the time wasn't ready for voting over Internet. State secretary Ank Bijleveld responded by announcing a return to paper voting.. It was reported in September 2007 that "a Dutch judge has declared the use of Nedap e-voting machines in recent Dutch elections unlawful."
carried out pilots in three municipalities at local elections in 2003 on voting machines in the polling stations using touch screens.
planned to carry out its first ever entirely electronically tabulated election, using and optical scan voting system
. The government invested $160 million into the new system. This included the electronic voting machines, printers, servers, power generators, memory cards, batteries, and broadband and satellite transmission equipment. This national implementation of electronic voting was intended to increase the accuracy and speed of vote tallying. In addition, it was expected to decrease the fraud and corruption found in past Filipino elections
.
On May 3, 2010, the Philippines pre-tested the electronic voting systems. The Commission on Elections (Comelec)
found 76,000 of the total 82,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan Machines to have faulty memory cards. The machines had miscounted votes and had given some votes to the rival candidate. After discovering discrepancies between manual and automated voting tallies, the memory cards were changed throughout the country. Many Filipino voters became skeptical of the e-voting system after the national recall. Because of past violent elections, 250,000 troops were placed on high alert around the country. These forces were instructed to guard the machines and voting stations in order to preempt any violent protests against the system. Some election officials attempted to postpone the May 10 election day but elections proceeded as scheduled.
On May 10, 2010
, the Philippines had its first presidential election using electronic voting. Comelec reported that only 400 of the 82,000 machines malfunctioned. Most voter complaints were related to waiting in long lines and learning the new technology. Although Filipino elections have been notorious for being violent after polls close, the 10 deaths in the 2010 elections were far fewer than previous years.
first implemented electronic voting systems in 2003, on a limited basis, to extend voting capabilities to soldiers and others serving in Iraq, and other theaters of war. Despite the publicly stated goal of fighting corruption, the equipment was procured and deployed in less than 30 days after the government edict passed.
, Neuchâtel
and Zürich
) have developed Internet voting test projects to allow citizens to vote via the Internet.
In 2009 and 2011, the 110,000 Swiss voters living abroad will have the option of voting using the Internet through a new pilot project introduced in September 2008.
In 2000, the London Mayoral and Assembly elections were counted using an optical scan voting system
with software provided by DRS plc of Milton Keynes. In 2004, the London Mayoral, Assembly and European Parliamentary elections were scanned and processed using optical character recognition
from the same company. Both elections required some editing of the ballot design to facilitate electronic tabulation, though they differed only slightly from the previous 'mark with an X' style ballots.
was be used to electronically count paper ballots in the Scottish Parliament general election and Scottish council elections in 2007. A report commissioned by the UK Electoral Commission
found significant errors in ballot design produced more than 150,000 spoilt vote
s.
. The Voting Integrity Project, along with two African-American and two Hispanic plaintiff's, claimed that by allowing internet voting, minority groups, which at that time had less access to the internet, would be have their collective voting power proportionately reduced. The plaintiff's sought an injunction to stop the election. The lawsuit, along with other factors, was depleting the resources of the Arizona Democratic Party. The court had to determine if the voting rights act applied, since this election was being conducted by the Democratic Party itself, not the state or country government; the plaintiff's argued it was. The court also had to decide if the election was unfairly dilluting the minority vote, given the plaintiff's claims that white's were more likely to vote over the internet than non-whites. Several organizations filed Amicus briefs in support of the Democratic Party and the internet election, including the Benjamin E. Mayes National Education Resource Center, the Center of Government Studies, and Professor Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School. On March 2, 2000 Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt, of the United States District Court in Phoenix, issued its decision. While the court agreed with the plaintiff's that this was a public election, it also noted in its decision that there other ways to vote, including absentee ballot by mail, and voting at polling places, and thus there was no basis to stop the election. The court denied the request for an injunction to stop the election.
President of the Navajo Nation
. The outreach efforts by Election.com CEO, Joe Mohen
, and the Arizona Democratic Party to native Americans were particularly successful, such that the Voting Integrity Project was unable to recruit even one native American to be a plaintiff in their case, and The Navajo leadership, including President Kelsey Begaye, prominent native American leaders posed for Television Cameras when they later voted over the internet.
On February 24, 2000, the Department of Justice granted pre-clearance for the election.
were mailed to each voter and a challenge-response authentication
system (such as birth date, place of birth, or social security number) was used as well. One magazine columnist, Howard Mortman, even hired a computer hacker to attempt to disrupt the election.
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
from elections around the world. Examples include polling place voting electronic voting and Internet voting.
Origin
The first known use of the term CyberVote was by MidacMidac
MIDAC is an acronym created in 1981 by a Sydney-based business, Combined Resources Computing . It stands for Microprocessor Intelligent Data Acquisition and Control...
in 1995 when they ran a web based vote regarding the French nuclear testing in the Pacific region. The resulting petition was delivered to the French government on a Syquest removable hard disk.
In October 2001 electronic voting was used for the first time in an Australian parliamentary election. In that election, 16,559 voters (8.3% of all votes counted) cast their votes electronically at polling stations in four places. The Victorian State Government introduced electronic voting on a trial basis for the 2006 State election.
Accessibility
Approximately 300,000 impaired Australians will vote independently for the first time in the 2007 elections. The Australian Electoral Commission has decided to implement voting machineVoting machine
Voting machines are the total combination of mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic equipment , that is used to define ballots; to cast and count votes; to report or display election results; and to maintain and produce any audit trail information...
s in 29 locations.
Internet voting
In 2007 Australian Defence Force and Defence civilian personnel deployed on operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands had the opportunity to vote via the Defence Restricted Network with an Australian Electoral Commission and Defence Department joint pilot project. After votes were recorded, they were encrypted and transmitted from a Citrix server to the REV database A total of 2012 personnel registered for and 1511 votes were successfully cast in the pilot, costing an estimated $521 per vote. Electronically submitted votes were printed following polling day, and dispatched to the relevant Divisions for counting.Belgium
Electronic voting in BelgiumElectronic voting in Belgium
Electronic Voting in Belgium started in 1991 when two locations were chosen to experiment on different electronic voting systems. The law to permit this experiment was passed by an absolute majority with no opposition at all. One of the systems tested was based on a touch panel similar to those...
started in 1991. It is widely used in Belgium for general and municipal elections and has been since 1999.
Brazil
Electronic voting in Brazil was introduced in 1996, when the first tests were carried in the state of Santa Catarina. Since 2000, all Brazilian elections have been fully electronic. By the 2000 and 2002 elections more than 400 thousand electronic voting machines were used nationwide in Brazil and the results were tallied electronically within minutes after the polls closed.Canada
It is a common misconception that there is no electronic voting in Canada. While the federal elections still use paper ballots, electronic voting technology has been used since at least the 1990s at the municipal level in some cities, and there are increasing efforts in a few areas to introduce it at a provincial level. Today optical scan voting systemOptical scan voting system
An optical scan voting system is an electronic voting system and uses an optical scanner to read marked paper ballots and tally the results.-History:...
s and Internet voting are common.
Estonia
Electronic voting in EstoniaElectronic voting in Estonia
The idea of having electronic voting in Estonia gained popularity in 2001 with the "e-minded" coalition government. Estonia became the first nation to hold legally binding general elections over the Internet with their pilot project for the municipal elections in 2005.The electronic voting system...
began in October 2005 local elections when Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
became the first country to have legally binding general elections using the Internet as a means of casting the vote and was declared a success by the Estonian election officials.
In 2005 Estonia became the first country to offer Internet voting nationally in local elections. 9,317 people voted online.
In 2007 Estonia held its and the world's first National Internet election. Voting was available from February 26 to 28. A total of 30,275 citizens used Internet voting.
In the 2009 local municipal elections, 104,415 people voted over the Internet. This means that roughly 9,5% of the persons with the right to vote gave their vote over the Internet.
In the 2011 parliamentary elections between 24 February and March 2, 140,846 people cast their votes online. 96% of the electronic votes were cast in Estonia and 4% by Estonian citizens residing in 106 foreign countries.
EU CyberVote Project
In September 2000, the European Commission launched the CyberVote project with the aim of demonstrating "fully verifiable on-line elections guaranteeing absolute privacy of the votes and using fixed and mobile Internet terminals". Trials were performed in Sweden, France, and Germany.Finland
Internet-enabled DRE machines, supplied by the company Scytl, were piloted in the October 2008 municipal elections in three municipalities (KarkkilaKarkkila
- External links :*...
, Kauniainen
Kauniainen
Kauniainen is a small town and a municipality of inhabitants in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. It is surrounded by the city of Espoo, in Greater Helsinki...
and Vihti
Vihti
Vihti is a small municipality located in the Uusimaa region of province of Southern Finland, approximately northwest of the capital city Helsinki. Its seat is Nummela. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...
). While the government still considers the pilot program a success, 232 voters encountered a usability flaw resulting in their votes not being registered. Because of the uncounted votes, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland
Supreme Administrative Court of Finland
The Supreme Administrative Court of Finland is the highest court in the Finnish administrative court system, parallel to the Supreme Court of Finland. Its jurisdiction covers the legality of the decisions of government officials, and its decisions are final...
ordered new elections in these municipalities.
France
In January 2007 France's UMPUnion for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement is a centre-right political party in France, and one of the two major contemporary political parties in the country along with the center-left Socialist Party...
party held a national presidential primary using both remote electronic voting and with 750 polling stations using touch screen electronic voting over the Internet. The election resulted in over 230,000 votes representing a near 70% turnout.
Elections in France
Elections in France
France is a representative democracy. Public officials in the legislative and executive branches are either elected by the citizens or appointed by elected officials...
utilized remote Internet voting for the first time in 2003 when French citizens living in the United States elected their representatives to the Assembly of French Citizens Abroad
Assembly of French Citizens Abroad
The Assembly of French Citizens Abroad is the political body that represents French citizens living outside of France. The assembly advises the government on issues involving French nationals living outside France, as well as the role of France in overseas developments...
. Over 60% of voters chose to vote using the Internet rather than paper. The Forum des droits sur l'Internet (Internet rights forum), published a recommendation on the future of electronic voting in France, stating that French citizens abroad should be able to use Internet voting for Assembly of the French Citizens Abroad elections. This recommendation became reality in 2009, with 6000 French citizens choosing to make use of the system.
Germany
In Germany the only accredited voting machines after testing by the PTB for national and local elections are the ESD1 and ESD2 from the Dutch company NedapNedap
Nedap is a Netherlands based company. Its principal place of business is Groenlo, the Netherlands. It has subsidiaries in Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Spain, and has been quoted on the Euronext exchange since 1947.The company focuses on developing and supplying...
. About 2000 of them have been used in the 2005 Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
elections covering approximately 2 million voters. These machines differ only in certain details due to different voting systems from the ES3B hacked by a Dutch citizen group and the Chaos Computer Club
Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club is an organization of hackers. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries.The CCC describes itself as "a galactic community of life forms, independent of age, sex, race or societal orientation, which strives across borders for freedom of...
on October 5, 2006. Because of this, additional security measures have been applied in the municipality elections on 22. October 2006 in Cottbus
Cottbus
Cottbus is a city in Brandenburg, Germany, situated around southeast of Berlin, on the River Spree. As of , its population was .- History :...
, including reading the software from the EPROM
EPROM
An EPROM , or erasable programmable read only memory, is a type of memory chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. In other words, it is non-volatile. It is an array of floating-gate transistors individually programmed by an electronic device that supplies higher voltages...
to compare it with the source and sealing the machines afterwards. The city of Cottbus ultimately decided not to purchase the Nedap voting system it had previously been leasing.
At the moment there are several lawsuits in court against the use of electronic voting machines in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. One of these reached the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
The Federal Constitutional Court is a special court established by the Grundgesetz, the German basic law...
in February 2007. Critics cite a lack transparency when recording the votes as intended by the voter and concerns relating to recounts. The certified Nedap
Nedap
Nedap is a Netherlands based company. Its principal place of business is Groenlo, the Netherlands. It has subsidiaries in Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Spain, and has been quoted on the Euronext exchange since 1947.The company focuses on developing and supplying...
machines are DRE
DRE voting machine
A direct-recording electronic voting machine records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter ; that processes data by means of a computer program; and that records voting data and ballot images in memory components...
systems which do not produce any paper records.
Following a 2005 pilot study during the national elections, wide public support and a unianimous decision by the Senate launched a plan for the implementation of an optical scan voting system
Optical scan voting system
An optical scan voting system is an electronic voting system and uses an optical scanner to read marked paper ballots and tally the results.-History:...
based on digital paper
Digital paper
Digital paper, also known as interactive paper, is patterned paper used in conjunction with a digital pen to create handwritten digital documents. The printed dot pattern uniquely identifies the position coordinates on the paper...
in the 2008 state elections of Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. After unsubstantiated public claims is September 2007 by the Fraktion der Grünen/GAL and the Chaos Computer Club
Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club is an organization of hackers. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries.The CCC describes itself as "a galactic community of life forms, independent of age, sex, race or societal orientation, which strives across borders for freedom of...
that the system vulnerable, the National Election Office (Landeswahlamtes) found in public surveys that while the systems usability was widely accepted, public distrust of the system was evident. Due to concerns over public confidence plans for use of the new voting system have been canceled. However, the Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) will continue the certification process of the Digital Pen.
India
No other country in the world has used electronic voting in as large a scale as India has. Since India is currently the second largest population in the world and therefore by default becomes the largest national population to vote in a democratic process, any use of electronic voting machines on a pen Indian scale would make it the largest instance of electronic voting.Electronic voting was first introduced in 1982 and was used on an experimental basis in the North Parur assembly constituency in the State of Kerala. However the Supreme Court of India struck down this election as against the law in A C Jose v. Sivan Pillai case. Amendments were made to the Representation of Peoples Act to legalise elections using Electronic Voting Machines. In 2003, all state elections and by-elections were held using EVMs.
The EVMs were also used during the national elections held for the Indian Parliament in 2004 and 2009. According to the statistics available through the mainstream media, more than 400 million voters (about 60% of India's eligible voters) exercised their franchise through EVMs in 2009 elections. Tallying such a large number of votes took just a few hours.
Background
From the initial introduction in 1982, to the country- wide use of EVM in 2004, Election commission of India took long and measured steps spanning over a period of nearly two decades, in the matter of electronic voting. In the meanwhile, general elections to various legislative assemblies, and numerous bye-elections and two general elections to the Lok Sabha have been conducted using EVMs at all polling stations. The tamper-proof technological soundness of the EVM has been endorsed by a technical experts subcommittee appointed at the initiative of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms in 1990. This experts committee (1990) was headed by Prof S.Sampath, then Chairman RAC, Defence Research and Development Organisation, with Prof P.V.Indiresan,then with IIT, Delhi, and Dr C.Rao Kasarabada, then Director Electronic Research and Development Center, Trivandrum as members. Subsequently, the Commission has also been consulting a group of technical experts comprising Prof P.V. Indiresan (who was also part of the earlier committee referred to above) and Prof D.T. Sahani and Prof A.K Agarwala both of IIT Delhi, regularly, on all EVM related technical issues. Besides, the Commission has in place elaborate administrative measures and procedural checks-and –balances aimed at total transparency and prevention of any possible misuse or procedural lapses. These measures include rigorous pre-election checking of each EVM by the technicians, two level randomization with the involvement of political parties, candidates, their agents, for the random allotment of the EVMs to various constituencies and subsequently to various polling stations, preparation of the EVMs for elections in the presence of the candidates/their agents, and the Election Observers, provision for various thread seal and paper seal protection against any unauthorized access to the EVMs after preparation, mock poll in the presence of polling agents and mock poll certification system before the commencement of poll, post poll sealing and strong room protection, randomization of counting staff, micro observers at the counting tables, and so on.The Election Commission of India is amply satisfied about the non-tamperability and the fool-proof working of the EVMs. The Commission’s confidence in the efficacy of the EVMs has been fortified by the judgments of various courts and the views of technical experts. The honorable Karnataka High Court has hailed the EVM as ‘a national pride’ (judgment dated 5.2.2004 in Michael B. Fernandes Vs C.K.Jaffer Sharief and others in E.P No 29 of 1999). The Election commission issued a press brief after the Indian general elections 2009 clarifying the same
Ireland
Ireland bought voting machines from the Dutch company NedapNedap
Nedap is a Netherlands based company. Its principal place of business is Groenlo, the Netherlands. It has subsidiaries in Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Spain, and has been quoted on the Euronext exchange since 1947.The company focuses on developing and supplying...
for about €40 million. The machines were used on a 'pilot' basis in 3 constituencies for the 2002 Irish general election
Irish general election, 2002
The Irish general election of 2002 was held on Friday, 17 May 2002 just over three weeks after the dissolution of the 28th Dáil on Thursday 25 April by President Mary McAleese, at the request of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern...
and a referendum on the Treaty of Nice
Treaty of Nice
The Treaty of Nice was signed by European leaders on 26 February 2001 and came into force on 1 February 2003. It amended the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Rome...
. Following a public report by the Commission on Electronic Voting, then Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Martin Cullen
Martin Cullen
Martin Cullen is a former Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He was a Teachta Dála for the Waterford constituency. Cullen was a member of Seanad Éireann and served as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government , Minister for Transport and Minister for Social and Family Affairs and...
again delayed the use of the machines
On 23 April 2009, the Minister for the Environment John Gormley
John Gormley
John Gormley is an Irish politician. He was the leader of the Irish Green Party from 2007 to 2011, and was a Teachta Dála for the Dublin South East constituency from 1997 to 2011. He served as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government from 2007–11...
announced that the electronic voting system was to be scrapped by an as of yet undetermined method, due to cost and the public's dissatisfaction with the current system.
On 6 October 2010, the Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...
Brian Cowen
Brian Cowen
Brian Cowen is a former Irish politician who served as Taoiseach of Ireland from 7 May 2008 to 9 March 2011. He was head of a coalition government led by Fianna Fáil which until 23 January 2011 had the support of the Green Party and independent TDs.Cowen was also leader of Fianna Fáil from 7 May...
said that the 7,000 machines would not be used for voting and would be disposed of. As of October 2010, the total cost of the electronic voting project has reached €54.6 million, including €3 million spent on storing the machines over the previous five years.
Italy
On the 9th and 10 April 2006 the Italian municipality of Cremona used Nedap Voting machines during the national elections. The pilot involved 3000 electors and 4 polling stations were equipped with Nedap systems. The electoral participation was very high and the pilot was successful.During the same elections (April 2006) the Ministry of New Technologies in cooperation with two big American companies organized a pilot only concerning e-counting. The experiment involved four regions and it cost 34 million of euro.
Netherlands
Since the late nineties, voting machines are used extensively during elections. Most areas in the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
use electronic voting in polling places. The most widely used voting machines are produced by the company Nedap
Nedap
Nedap is a Netherlands based company. Its principal place of business is Groenlo, the Netherlands. It has subsidiaries in Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Spain, and has been quoted on the Euronext exchange since 1947.The company focuses on developing and supplying...
. In the parliamentary elections of 2006, 21,000 persons will be using the to cast their vote.
On 5. October 2006 the group "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" ("We do not trust voting machines") demonstrated on Dutch television how the Nedap ES3B machines could be manipulated in 5 minutes. The exchange of the software would not be recognisable by voters or election officials.
Apparently there was a case of an election official misinforming voters of when their vote is recorded and later recording it himself during municipality elections in Landerd
Landerd
Landerd is a municipality within the province of North Brabant in the southern Netherlands.-History:Landerd is the result of a merger between the formerly independent municipalities of Schaijk and Zeeland on 1 January 1994. Schaijk and Reek had merged earlier on 1 July 1942.- Population centres...
, Netherlands in 2006. A candidate was also an election official and got the unusual amount of 181 votes in the polling place where he was working. In the other three polling places together he got 11 votes. Only circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence in which an inference is required to connect it to a conclusion of fact, like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime...
could be found because the voting machine was a direct-recording electronic voting machine
DRE voting machine
A direct-recording electronic voting machine records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter ; that processes data by means of a computer program; and that records voting data and ballot images in memory components...
, in a poll by a local newspaper the results were totally different. The case is still under prosecution.
Van Eck phreaking
Van Eck phreaking
Van Eck phreaking is the process of eavesdropping on the contents of a CRT- or LC-Display by detecting its electromagnetic emissions. It is named after Dutch computer researcher Wim van Eck, who in 1985 published the first paper on it, including proof of concept.Phreaking is the process of...
might also compromise the secrecy of the votes in an election using electronic voting. This made the Dutch government ban the use of computer voting machines manufactured by SDU in the 2006 national elections, fearing that secret ballot
Secret ballot
The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...
s may not be kept secret.
In September 2007 a committee chaired by Korthals Altes
Frits Korthals Altes
Frederik "Frits" Korthals Altes is a Dutch politician, who served as justice minister during the first and second cabinets of prime minister Ruud Lubbers. He is an honorary member of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ....
reported for the government that it would be better to return to paper voting. The deputy minister for interior Bijleveld
Ank Bijleveld-Schouten
Anna Theodora Bernardina Bijleveld-Schouten is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal . She is the Queen's Commissioner of Overijssel since January 1, 2011.-Early life:...
said in a first response she would accept the committee's advice, and ban electronic voting. The committee also concluded that the time wasn't ready for voting over Internet. State secretary Ank Bijleveld responded by announcing a return to paper voting.. It was reported in September 2007 that "a Dutch judge has declared the use of Nedap e-voting machines in recent Dutch elections unlawful."
Norway
The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development of NorwayNorway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
carried out pilots in three municipalities at local elections in 2003 on voting machines in the polling stations using touch screens.
Philippines
In May 2010, the government of the PhilippinesPhilippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
planned to carry out its first ever entirely electronically tabulated election, using and optical scan voting system
Optical scan voting system
An optical scan voting system is an electronic voting system and uses an optical scanner to read marked paper ballots and tally the results.-History:...
. The government invested $160 million into the new system. This included the electronic voting machines, printers, servers, power generators, memory cards, batteries, and broadband and satellite transmission equipment. This national implementation of electronic voting was intended to increase the accuracy and speed of vote tallying. In addition, it was expected to decrease the fraud and corruption found in past Filipino elections
Elections in the Philippines
The Philippines elects on national level a head of state and a legislature. The president is elected for a six-year term by the people. The vice-president is elected at the same time on a separate ballot...
.
On May 3, 2010, the Philippines pre-tested the electronic voting systems. The Commission on Elections (Comelec)
Commission on Elections (Philippines)
The Commission on Elections, or COMELEC, is one of the three constitutional commissions of the Philippines. Its principal role is to enforce all laws and regulations relative to the conduct of elections, initiatives, referendums, and recalls....
found 76,000 of the total 82,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan Machines to have faulty memory cards. The machines had miscounted votes and had given some votes to the rival candidate. After discovering discrepancies between manual and automated voting tallies, the memory cards were changed throughout the country. Many Filipino voters became skeptical of the e-voting system after the national recall. Because of past violent elections, 250,000 troops were placed on high alert around the country. These forces were instructed to guard the machines and voting stations in order to preempt any violent protests against the system. Some election officials attempted to postpone the May 10 election day but elections proceeded as scheduled.
On May 10, 2010
Philippine general election, 2010
Elections for all positions in the Philippines above the barangay were held on Monday, May 10, 2010. The elected president will become the 15th President of the Philippines, succeeding President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is barred from seeking re-election due to term restrictions...
, the Philippines had its first presidential election using electronic voting. Comelec reported that only 400 of the 82,000 machines malfunctioned. Most voter complaints were related to waiting in long lines and learning the new technology. Although Filipino elections have been notorious for being violent after polls close, the 10 deaths in the 2010 elections were far fewer than previous years.
Romania
RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
first implemented electronic voting systems in 2003, on a limited basis, to extend voting capabilities to soldiers and others serving in Iraq, and other theaters of war. Despite the publicly stated goal of fighting corruption, the equipment was procured and deployed in less than 30 days after the government edict passed.
Switzerland
Several cantons (GenevaCanton of Geneva
The Republic and Canton of Geneva is the French speaking westernmost canton or state of Switzerland, surrounded on almost all sides by France. As is the case in several other Swiss cantons The Republic and Canton of Geneva is the French speaking westernmost canton or state of Switzerland,...
, Neuchâtel
Canton of Neuchâtel
Neuchâtel is a canton of French speaking western Switzerland. In 2007, its population was 169,782 of which 39,654 were foreigners. The capital is Neuchâtel.-History:...
and Zürich
Canton of Zürich
The Canton of Zurich has a population of . The canton is located in the northeast of Switzerland and the city of Zurich is its capital. The official language is German, but people speak the local Swiss German dialect called Züritüütsch...
) have developed Internet voting test projects to allow citizens to vote via the Internet.
In 2009 and 2011, the 110,000 Swiss voters living abroad will have the option of voting using the Internet through a new pilot project introduced in September 2008.
England
Voting pilots have taken place in May 2006, June 2004, May 2003, May 2002, and May 2000.In 2000, the London Mayoral and Assembly elections were counted using an optical scan voting system
Optical scan voting system
An optical scan voting system is an electronic voting system and uses an optical scanner to read marked paper ballots and tally the results.-History:...
with software provided by DRS plc of Milton Keynes. In 2004, the London Mayoral, Assembly and European Parliamentary elections were scanned and processed using optical character recognition
Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
from the same company. Both elections required some editing of the ballot design to facilitate electronic tabulation, though they differed only slightly from the previous 'mark with an X' style ballots.
Scotland
An optical scan voting systemOptical scan voting system
An optical scan voting system is an electronic voting system and uses an optical scanner to read marked paper ballots and tally the results.-History:...
was be used to electronically count paper ballots in the Scottish Parliament general election and Scottish council elections in 2007. A report commissioned by the UK Electoral Commission
Electoral Commission (United Kingdom)
The Electoral Commission is an independent body set up by the UK Parliament. It regulates party and election finance and sets standards for well-run elections...
found significant errors in ballot design produced more than 150,000 spoilt vote
Spoilt vote
'Bold text'In voting, a ballot is considered to be spoilt, spoiled, void, null, informal or stray if it is regarded by the election authorities to be invalid and thus not included in the tally during vote counting. This may be done accidentally or deliberately...
s.
2000 Arizona Democratic presidential primary Internet election
In March 2000 the Arizona Democratic Party ran its Presidential Primary over the internet using the private company election.com. The announcement received significant press coverage around the world, covered in virtually every country and medium as a test of whether internet voting could actually work in a statewide election.Voting Rights Act lawsuits
Several attempts were made to stop the election, including a lawsuit instigated by the Virginia based Voting Integrity Project, which claimed that internet voting would disadvantage African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, all protected classes under the Voting Rights ActVoting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S....
. The Voting Integrity Project, along with two African-American and two Hispanic plaintiff's, claimed that by allowing internet voting, minority groups, which at that time had less access to the internet, would be have their collective voting power proportionately reduced. The plaintiff's sought an injunction to stop the election. The lawsuit, along with other factors, was depleting the resources of the Arizona Democratic Party. The court had to determine if the voting rights act applied, since this election was being conducted by the Democratic Party itself, not the state or country government; the plaintiff's argued it was. The court also had to decide if the election was unfairly dilluting the minority vote, given the plaintiff's claims that white's were more likely to vote over the internet than non-whites. Several organizations filed Amicus briefs in support of the Democratic Party and the internet election, including the Benjamin E. Mayes National Education Resource Center, the Center of Government Studies, and Professor Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School. On March 2, 2000 Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt, of the United States District Court in Phoenix, issued its decision. While the court agreed with the plaintiff's that this was a public election, it also noted in its decision that there other ways to vote, including absentee ballot by mail, and voting at polling places, and thus there was no basis to stop the election. The court denied the request for an injunction to stop the election.
Civil rights concerns
Serious concerns about internet were also raised by civil rights organizations around the United States. Native American support is particularly important in Arizona, where they numbered more than 250,000. The states two most prominent leaders were Apache leader John Lewis, president of the Inter-Tribal Counsel, and Kelsey A. BegayeKelsey A. Begaye
Kelsey A. Begaye was elected the fifth president of the Navajo Nation in 1998, defeating Joe Shirley, Jr. in the general election. Begaye was elected leader of the largest Indian tribe in the United States, on a platform of moral values based on Diné and Christian cultural traditions and an...
President of the Navajo Nation
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering , occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico...
. The outreach efforts by Election.com CEO, Joe Mohen
Joe Mohen
Joseph T. Mohen, better known as Joe Mohen, was the CEO and co-founder of election.com, which ran the Arizona Democratic Primary in March 2000, the world’s first legally binding election conducted on the Internet, according to the company...
, and the Arizona Democratic Party to native Americans were particularly successful, such that the Voting Integrity Project was unable to recruit even one native American to be a plaintiff in their case, and The Navajo leadership, including President Kelsey Begaye, prominent native American leaders posed for Television Cameras when they later voted over the internet.
On February 24, 2000, the Department of Justice granted pre-clearance for the election.
Security threats
Many public threats by hackers were made that they would bring down the election. These threats ranged from to denial of service attacks and voter identity theft. The election software was audited by KPMG. While the original plan was to use VeriSign digital certificates, though ultimately PINsPersonal identification number
A personal identification number is a secret numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system. Typically, the user is required to provide a non-confidential user identifier or token and a confidential PIN to gain access to the system...
were mailed to each voter and a challenge-response authentication
Challenge-response authentication
In computer security, challenge-response authentication is a family of protocols in which one party presents a question and another party must provide a valid answer to be authenticated....
system (such as birth date, place of birth, or social security number) was used as well. One magazine columnist, Howard Mortman, even hired a computer hacker to attempt to disrupt the election.