The Scottish Executive is organising a series of trials on the electronic counting of votes in an election
A spokesperson for the Scottish Executive told Government Computing News on 14 February 2006 that the first trial was due to begin in Glasgow today. It will last for a week and be followed by similar trials in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
The Scottish Executive and the Scottish Office are running the trials to evaluate the potential for e-counting in the combined Scottish Parliament and local government elections of 2007. It is the first time they have been run on a national basis; the precedent in Scotland is limited to a form of e-counting used in a council by-election in Aberdeen in 2004.
The count will include scanning papers and the calculation of a result using the first past the post, additional member system and single transferable vote electoral systems. e-Counting specialist DRS and election consultancy ERS have been contracted to provide technology and services to support the trials.
Quelle: KableNET, 14.02.2006
