The new electronic vote counting system which will come into use in the upcoming MEP and local council elections next May will make for a much shorter wait for the full results of the election to be published, and is going through final tests to make sure that it is ready for use in 2019.

The system, work on which began in November 2017, will undergo two mock elections in the coming weeks so to ascertain that it is ready to properly deal with the elections next May.  The first of these mock elections will be in house, however the second will be open to all political party delegates so that they are able to see how the system works.

Under the new “eCount” system, full results won’t take longer than half a day to be published.  The wait for the full results during the last MEP elections was of four days.

The system, which looks at providing an accurate, timely, transparent, and secure alternative to the manual counting system that was used in elections prior, has already undergone rigorous scanning tests, and indeed in its most realistic scale test it managed to scan 390,000 ballot papers in around six and a half hours.

Whilst the infrastructure of the counting hall in Naxxar has been modernised to host the new electronic system, the vote counting process has also been modified. Whilst ballot boxes will still be put into the strong room upon arrival as per usual, the votes will be scanned electronically and the respective voting preferences will be detected by the scanner.  The ballot paper will then be displayed on a big screen at each district’s station for all those gathered to see.

If the system cannot recognise a ballot sheet, it is passed onto a human adjudicator who – with party delegates present – will recognise it themselves.  The scanning system does not automatically reject any votes. 

Party delegates and electoral commissioners will also have an app where they can view any ballot sheet in accordance with a unique number that is printed onto the back of them after the sheets are scanned.  Each district – which will have two scanners – will also have an Idox company specialist as support in case any technical hitch or problem arises.

Photos Alenka Falzon

The next steps for the system operators aside from the mock elections are updating all stakeholders and conducting training on the staff using the system.

The “eCount” system is being operated by leading providers of specialist election solutions idox, and election security technology company Scytl.  Idox as a company have 23 years of experience in election fields, and most recently conducted the elections for 32 Scottish local authorities.  Scytl meanwhile specialise in the security aspects of such electronic election management solutions.