The Electoral Commission has taken the plunge and issued a tender for an electronic vote counting system for use in all elections from 2019 onward. The advent of electronic voting will substantially trim down the time it takes to count votes, particularly given Malta’s laborious Single Transferable Voting system, which takes days on end to produce the full results of electoral polling. The new system is expected to produce election results in a matter of a few hours. In its tender announcement issued this week, the Electoral Commission has made it clear that the system will certainly not be employed in the next general election, whether that is to be held this year or next, and specifies that it will be first used for tallying the results of the 2019 European Parliament and Local Council Elections.
It does, however, also specify that the system will be used in subsequent general elections, European Parliament, Local Council Elections and any casual election between 2019 and 2024.
The prospect of electronic voting, which would require a culture change for the electorate rather than the Electoral Commission, appears to be off the cards for the time being, as the tender document clearly specifies that: “Tenderers shall deliver a complete solution for the required infrastructure and services. The end-to-end solution includes the process from receipt of ballot boxes to the result being calculated and made available to the Electoral Commission for publication. This will require a broad range of technologies and capabilities.”
Full Article: Electronic vote counting for all elections from 2019 – The Malta Independent.