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ACTIVITIES :: eTen :: Projects :: Projects of the Month :: E-POLL (E-POLL 2004)

October 2004 Project of the Month: E-POLL

E-POLL - Electronic Polling System for Remote Operation

Issues being addressed

E-POLL is an idea started in 2000 with the launch of an IST research project belonging to the Fifth Framework Programme. The concept was to re-engineer the entire voting processes including all the operation performed before the expression of vote and the post-vote tasks such as balloting. Innovations regarded different technologies (Wireless, Intranet, Smart Card, Fingerprint, GPRS).

Project Partners were engaged to create consensus around the concept of electronic vote. In other words, E-POLL services has been revised with the endeavour to consolidate or, in some cases, create the citizen acceptance about the service while facilitating the definition of new normative in the involved countries.

E-POLL approach has been validated during first experiments in Italy by CIPA (National Agency for Informatic in the Public Administration) and followed a privacy check by the Italian Authority for Privacy; in France the CNIL (National committee for citizen rights), authorised and checked the experiments.

The research project ended in November 2002 and released a pre-industrial system to support e-democracy processes going from information to citizens to remote voting.

Experimental sites were in France, Italy and Poland. The infrastructure was tested in 6 electoral events chronologically in: Avellino, Campobasso, Merignac, Vandeouvre, Chestokowa, Cremona.

Objectives

In the eTEN context the project plans to run extensive piloting in two countries (Italy and France) onto all the voting chain (pre-vote, post-vote, balloting), in order to test the flexibility and the acceptability of service provided and as a consequence the real market potential for the entire service set.

Goal of E-POLL is to introduce high level services in the e-democracy area using a seamless network based on both wired and mobile architecture on a virtual private network providing the high security and privacy guarantees needed for democracy services or on the Internet for lower security services.

The involvement of Public Administration as the main stakeholder in the e-democracy introduction process is considered a priority for the market validation phase. E-POLL involves central Administrations directly dealing with organisation and economic support for democracy processes, with a clear objective: to improve the citizens' participation to government activities.

The developed technical platform is mature and effective. Therefore, E-POLL does not need a further development but, extensive piloting to adapt it to market needs and different legislations in Europe.

The E-POLL approach has to be considered as a way to build services (such as all types of voting), toward citizens through its de-localised service provision using a polling station designed to facilitate e-inclusion (disabled and blind persons can access polling services).

The core is to perform a 140.000 voters pilot also to consolidate developed technologies and to address interoperability and multilanguage issues depending by local environment.

E-POLL project aims at fostering a second generation e-voting service set in a wide area in Europe by introducing the use of flexible services, easily adaptable to different legislations around European Countries.

Achievements

Piloting phase sees a first milestone on September 26th, 2004. At this date, a municipal Referendum in Italy at Ladispoli Municipality will be organized. In this event the entire population of the town, about 25.000 citizens, will pilot the infrastructure in a consultation with legal value. This means people won’t be obliged to vote twice: once in the traditional paper form and afterward electronically.

To allow this legal innovation Municipality Council modified the Town Statute by introducing new articles stating the value of an electronic consultation. For this event, of course, a massive information and training campaign has been organized towards the population.

A task force of 40 people has been active making a door-to-door job to distribute and activate voting cards and explaining what will happen on the 26th.

In term of communication different media are in place to inform and make aware the citizenship:

• Posters and wallpaper with information to voters on how to use card, kiosk and other component were placed in the city of Ladispoli,
• Videocassettes and CD ROM containing a training cartoon ad hoc prepared were distributed to citizens when distributing the voting card,
• Voting booths with real kiosk were placed in the main Ladispoli squares to allow people to simulate all the voting phases,
• An advertising spot informing about the Referendum was daily broadcasted by the Public Regional Broadcasting Company (RAI TRE).

Results and details about this first validation event will be given after the Referendum.

Reference Data

Dedicated Web site: http://www.e-poll-project.net/
Project Reference: eTEN-510848
Contract Type: Market Validation
Start date: 02-01-2004
Duration: 18 months
End Date: 31-06-2005