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Keeping Pace with Technology
By Richard Twigg

Keeping up with the latest technology trends can be a daunting task for election officials and even IT professionals. The rapid development of technology makes even the latest new gadget obsolete in a matter of months. With all these changes, how can you keep current? I suggest attending events concentrating on IT and elections, using various information resources and turning to IFES.

Events

Election officials can keep up with the latest trends in e-voting technology by attending conferences and workshops. I attended the World E-democracy Forum in Paris last year and found that to be an excellent opportunity to network and to see how election technology is being put into practice.

Two other notable events held recently were the Overseas Vote Foundation’s recent conference in Munich, Germany, which addressed the challenges of military overseas voting and E-Voting.CC’s seminar covering “Information Technology in the Electoral Process” in cooperation with the Danube University in Krems.

These and similar events are excellent opportunities to meet vendors and election officials that are implementing this technology right now. Understanding their experiences and best practices is helpful when facing decisions about the pros and cons of introducing or managing election technologies. See the sidebar for additional events that you may still attend in 2008.

Information Resources

You can also keep connected with election technology news through various papers, journals, books and web sites. Some publications I have found useful include:

Voting Technology: The not-so-simple act of casting a ballot, published by Brookings Institution Press.
From Power Outages to Paper Trails, published by IFES.
In Electronic Elections: The Perils and Promises of Digital Democracy, published by Princeton University Press.
Electronic Voting and Democracy: A Comparative Analysis, published by Palgrave MacMillan.

Web resources include:

International Foundation for Electoral Systems

IFES can be a resource for expert advice on election technology. IFES has worked in many countries assisting Election Management Bodies (EMBs) on planning, procuring and managing electoral technologies. Recent examples of IFES’ work include efforts to implement efficient and secure computer networks that manage in-house applications as basic as e-mail to more complex voter registration databases and websites where voters can access information about candidates and assist in voter outreach. IFES also regularly convenes international experts to discuss trends and issues involving election technology at its headquarters and in collaboration with our many field offices worldwide.

Update on Electoral Technology

In the 2007 IFES Buyers Guide, I wrote about the latest technologies in Europe and an e-voting pilot in Hamburg, Germany, using digital pen technology. A hacker organization claims to have found security flaws in the voting system. They presented a scenario where real ballots could be replaced by manually manipulated ones; however, the methods of such manipulation were not explained nor was an actual attempt to hack the system tested against the software’s builtin security. Despite completing a certification processes, the solution was not considered for use in Hamburg’s February 2008 local elections, due to the heightened security concerns. The co-operation between Diagramm Halbach and Anoto will continue and Anoto is still looking at the market segment of e-voting systems with interest.

E-voting Events in 2008

The 2008 USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT ‘08) will be held July 28–29, 2008, in San Jose, Calif. This workshop is sponsored by USENIX, The Advanced Computing Systems Association and ACCURATE, A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections.

Additional information at
www.usenix.org/event/evt08/cfp

The 3rd International Conference on Electronic Voting 2008 (EVOTE08) will be held from August 6 to 9, 2008, in Bregenz, Austria. This biennial conference is organized by the Competence Center for Electronic Voting and Participation.

Additional information at
www.e-voting.cc/topics/conference2008

Contact: Richard Twigg, Information
Technology Director at IFES
Tel: +1 202-350-6720

Disclaimer: Please note that IFES does not act as a certification body for the companies contained in this directory. Inclusion in this publication does not indicate an endorsement by IFES of any particular company, its technology or its services. IFES’ sole interest is providing election authorities with information about companies providing needed goods and services used in managing public and private elections, as well as related information on the procurement process. Election authorities remain responsible for determining the qualifications of any company and the suitability of its products and services. IFES also reserves the right to edit listing submissions for clarity, brevity and format and cannot accept responsibility for any erroneous information supplied by a listed company.