The Electoral Commission has signed a contract with UK based Idox Group (UK) to kickstart the implementation process of the Electronic Vote Counting Solution project, following the issuing of an open call for tender by the Department of Contracts.

Chief Electoral Commissioner Joseph Church said that the aim is to have the system in place for the upcoming MEP and local council elections in 2019.

Church explained that the process began back in 2015, after the MEP elections. “We have conducted manual elections over the past decades. When I was appointed Chief Electoral Commissioner, this was my first challenge. I had seen the length of time it takes at the counting hall, and we began considering that things needed to change, that we needed a speedier vote counting process that will leave efficient results.”

He said that he, together with his colleagues, brainstormed over possible solution. This is a huge change, he said. Back in 2015 we issued a request for information and five parties showed interest. We evaluated them and two of the five dropped out. We then invited the remaining three to come to Malta and deliver presentations, where party delegates were also present.”

He said that with this new process, vote counting will no longer take 2-3 days, but will likely take around 12 hours. “The main target is to finish in one day.”

After the three presentations, a tender was issued and two applied. Idox grup were awarded the tender.

The planning phase, he said, will be on 4 December, and so testing and trials will occur after.

Andrew Riley, from Idox, said that they are the provider of solutions to the public sector across Europe.

He said that Idox health business is based here in Malta. “Our election solutions are used in elections across Europe.  We are confident we can help deliver goals, in terms of delivering speedy counts transparency and accuracy.”

Asked about security and backup options in case the system fails, Church as well as others representing the Commission said that “We will be in a position to ascertain whether the system is running smoothly by November next year.  But in the eventuality something goes wrong, manual counting system is the fall back.”

Riley said that the software is secure, and is a ringfenced system. He said that there is a significant amount of security software ensuring no changes can be made.

Part of the project to ensure security etc will see a number of mock elections working through volumes and contingencies to ensure the process runs smoothly.

Andy Riley, asked to give examples of some of the elections they have provided systems for, said that the main example is in Scotland,  “where we have delivered electronic counting over the last last 6-7 years in certain elections. “

“We have now run over 70 contests with the solution, so this is a tried and tested solution.” He said that they are actually running a by-electionin Scotland today, and that the last major elections they were used in was in Scotland last May.

“The Idox system has been running in Edinburgh and Glasgow which have the same population as Malta.”