Since Monday 18 May at 08:00, the 1st legally binding electronic election in Austrian history went online. The Austrian Federal Student Union is being elected during this week via a remote electronic channel. Next week from May 26 to May 28 an ordinary, paper based voting channel will be opened to ensure. The paper and the electronic votes will be counted on the 28th and hence the results should be available in the evening.
In 2000, the student union requested a channel for distance voting from the minister in charge. Due to the fact that the citizens cards were non existent at that time, a scientific group has been founded in order to prepare e-Voting test elections, which were held in 2003 and 2004. Today, this election will have binding character.
Authentification is established through the citizen card. The ministry has started the campaign Studi.gv.at at in order to issue 10.000 free card readers for students who activate their citizens card function, which is located on the e-Card, which is used for healthcare administration. The vote is encrypted and then digitally signed using he citizen card. After the paper voting process the electoral commission will start the counting process. Using two keys held by two different members of the electoral commission, the signatures will be removed, the votes will be mixed and then counted.
The voting system was programmed by the Spanish e-Voting specialist, Scytl, and is hosted at the Austrian Federal Computation Center. The Austrian Ministry of Science and Research is the initiator, Robert Krimmer from e-Voting CC is consulting the implementation process.
- Read more en PEP Net.eu
- Official e-Voting website (in German)
