This evaluation report gives an overview of the first use of e-voting in a legally binding election in Austria. It is available in German, however a short summary in English is given below.


Download also from www.oeh-wahl.gv.at

The use of e-voting for the elections to the Austrian Federation of students (Hochschülerinnen und Hochschülerschaftswahlen) was one of the most sophisticated e government projects in 2009. It was the task to complement the paper based voting with an electronic voting channel in order to create new opportunities to vote. Together with the implementation of e-voting the legal basis was adapted to include an electronic election administration.

This first of a kind implementation of e-voting in Austria was technically successful. Almost 1% (2.161) of the eligible students cast their votes electronically between 18th and 22nd of May 2009. For identification and authentication, they used the citizen card (the Austrian model of a smart card with digital signature) and a suitable smartcard-reader device, which was handed out for free. The anonymity was performed by using a cryptographic protocol in the post-electoral phase, similar to a paper based postal voting procedure. The e-voting servers were placed in two data centers of the Federal Computing Centre (Bundesrechenzentrum) to allow for fail-safe operation.

The use of the citizen card was appropriate because of its associated high safety and powerful legal standing. However the penetration of the citizen card is rather low at present. Therefore, the federal ministry of science and research started the initiative studi.gv.at with the purpose to raise awareness and penetration of the citizen card amongst students. While over 14.000 students made use of this opportunity, only a small portion of them used e-voting. Main reason to this is the general limited number of applications aimed at students which make use of this card. The general acceptance and with it the penetration numbers for this smart card will only be reached when a wide range and a large number of additional services are provided with appropriate functionality, especially for students.

The discussion around e-voting was rather controversial with clear pro and contra positions. On the one side the federal ministry of science and research and on the other side selected representatives of the federation of students. The discussion dominated the electoral campaigns and hurt the institution of the elections.

For future uses of e-voting in Austria the penetration of identification and authentication means has to be raised as well as a more positive atmosphere amongst the stakeholders has to be reached.

As a founding member of Pep-Net.eu, Europe's leading eParticipation blog and networking platform, E-Voting.CC is now participating in the "Pep-Net Conference Series".

The "Pep-Net Conference Series" is an initiative started by Pep-Net members, who are organizing conferences throughout the years 2009 and 2010. As a special programme there will be additional workshops lead by Pep-Net members and invited speakers.

E-Voting.CC is glad to also host a workshop during our EVOTE2010 Conference which will be held from 21st to 24th of July 2010.

Our Conference Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Electronic Voting, which was held from 7th to 9th of August 2008 in Castle Hofen, are now online. Exactly one year after the opening session we are glad to publish them on the web.

You can download the PDF here.

The Austrian Ministry of Science and Research (BMWF) published today - three months before the student union elections - a set of frequently asked questions around the e-voting process (in German).

Please see for yourself here at the bottom of the page [direct link].

It is also available at Studi.gv.at

Salzburger Nachrichten, an Austrian newspaper, has nominated the BMWF E-Voting Project as one of ten most important projects in Austria:

"Salzburger Nachrichten" vom 12.02.2009 Seite: 3
Ressort: Hintergrund/Seite 3

Alexandra PARRAGH

Regierung der Arbeitsgruppen

Expertenflut. Die Regierung setzt auf Gruppenarbeit und wartet auf Lösungen.

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Hier die Top Ten der wichtigsten und skurrilsten Gruppen:

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6 Gruppentest ÖH-Wahl für Wählen per Mausklick Eine Arbeitsgruppe arbeitet schon länger am E-Voting. Bei der nächsten ÖH-Wahl im Mai 2009 soll Wählen per Internet erstmals zum Einsatz kommen.

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The Austrian Ministry of Science and Research organizes a conference on e-democracy where major Austrian and international stakeholders for participation using the Internet will discuss chances and tradeoffs thereof.

The conference will take place on the 3rd of december 2008, from 9 am to 5 pm in the Palais Harrach in Vienna.

After the opening by Minister Johannes Hahn, Pippa Norris from Harvard will present her thoughts and studies on the topic via a interactive line while residing in Boston. After that Thomas Buchsbaum will present his experience from drafting the Council of Europe recommendation on E-Democracy.

Then the first panel with reknowed speakers like Peter Filzmaier (Danube University), Fabian Breuer (EUI Florence) and Peter Parycek (Austrian Chancellery) takes place.

Afterwards, Robert Krimmer will present the E-Voting project in the Austrian Student Union which will then guide the participants to the lunch buffet.

In the afternoon three parallel sessions will discuss legal, technical and infrastructure issues around e-democracy, e-voting and participation in general.

In the technical session, Thomas Grechenig from TU Vienna will discuss with Alexander Prosser (WU Vienna), Gerald Fischer (TU Vienna) and Peter Purgathofer (TU Vienna).

In the legal session Robert Stein (Ministry of the Interior), Heinz Mayer (University of Vienna) and Melanie Volkamer (TU Darmstadt) and Heinz Zeger (ARGEdaten) will report about their views of possibilities to introduce e-democracy in Austria.

In the infrastructure session it will be Reinhard Posch (TU Graz), Volker Schörghofer (Social Security), Arthur Winter (Austrian Ministry of Finance) who will discuss the possibilities of the Austrian Citizen Card.

Finally Samir Al-Mobayyed, chairman of the student union and a representative of the Austrian University conference will reflect the possibilities of e-democracy together with Friedrich Faulhammer of the Austrian Ministry.

It will for sure be a very interesting conference and will benefit from a very lively debate!

Interested participants can register with enquete@bmwf.gv.at.

Read the full programme here.

The OSCE / ODIHR office in Warsaw released a proposal for guidelines on Observing Electronic Voting.

E-Voting.CC had the honour to contribute to this document and it has the chance after the recommendation of the Council of Europe on Electronic Voting in 2004 to be the second legal document serving as a multi-laterally agreed standard on observing electronic voting.

The discussion is still going on, ODIHR is welcoming comments and proposals for amendments.

On 2nd of October 2008 the Austrian Minister for Science and Research Dr. Johannes Hahn published the decree "Hochschülerinnen- und Hochschülerschaftswahlordnung 2005" which forsees regulations for E-Voting in the elections to the Austrian Students Council.

It regulates:

- E-Voting will take place one week (from Monday 08:00 to Friday 18.00) before the paper-based election
- For identification and authentication the Austrian Citizen Card has to be used
- The Electoral Register makes use of the University Data Network ("Universitätsdatenverbund")
- Both voting channels (paper-based and electronic) will be supported by a election administration system

It is in line with §§ 34, 39 and 48 of the Austrian Student Union Law passed by the Austrian Parliament on 1st of February 2001.

Read more here.

You can also find the full text at the website of the BMWF.

Now the HSWO is also integrated in the online legal information system (RIS) here.

The Austrian Parliament invited experts on e-voting out of politics and science as well as social scientists to discuss electronic voting as a future topic for Austria.

Michael Spindelegger, Vice-President of the Austrian Nationalrat and Karin Hakl, speaker of the Austrian people party (ÖVP) started with an enthusiastic talk about the necessity to participate in elections and the task of the state to offer possibilities to do so.

For Robert Stein, vice-chairman of the Austrian election management board the introduction of postal voting was a necessary act that has devitalized important arguments against e-voting. He promoted the need of legal and technical standards as well as pilot tests but emphasized that e-voting could be in use in Austria in the next few years. As Robert Krimmer, director of E-Voting.CC explained the ÖH-election 2009 with e-voting as an additional voting channel will be such a pilot test and bring important experiences in the use of e-voting for Austria. By observing other countries in the use of e-voting Austria could also benefit. Uwe Serdült, Vice director of the Institute for Direct Democracy in Zurich reported how the Swiss cantons deal with challenges by using e-voting in elections.

Helene Karmasin, director of Karmasin Motivforschung emphasized that grass-roots politics would be necessary to address “tomorrow’s clients”. The introduction of e-voting would be a clear signal to this special “Lebenswelt”. According to latest polls 30% of the Austrians have a positive emotional attitude towards e-voting. Despite this positive trend the participants agreed on that it is necessary to support an open discussion on trust and security matters as well as to strengthen political education amongst e-voting.

Download Robert Krimmer's slides here.

Today the E-Voting Competition 2008 started. Read more at the here.