Does the country use open source software in electoral processes?

Mohamed Mansour, High ElectionsCommittee, Egypt

Egypt has held 7electoral events since the start of 2011 (3 referenda, 2 parliamentaryelections and 2 presidential elections), due to political developments - withanother parliamentary election scheduled within the next few months. In all ofthese, the EMB has relied heavily on open source technologies in numerous areasof the electoral process.

The mostsignificant area in which open source technologies are utilized are pollingstation inquiry services. Voters are assigned automatically to pollingstations, according to the address from their ID cards. Accordingly, over 55million voters need to inquire ahead of every electoral event about theirpolling station information (polling center name, address, polling stationnumber, list number, map coordinates, etc...). This information is madeavailable through multiple delivery channels (website, call center, SMS, mobileapps, gadget, etc...), which are all completely based on open source software.Even with limited hardware, the system is able to serve up to 50 millioninquires per electoral event. In addition, the API for the inquiry service areavailable for use by any developers (companies, government agencies, orindividuals) to avail the service to any segment.

Another importantuse of open source software was for the new out-of-country voting model thatwas recently adopted in the 2014 presidential election. No registration isrequired, and all eligible voters are to go to any of the 141 embassies andconsulates that are used as polling stations around the world. Before a persongets to vote, two conditions are checked through an online system (based onFOSS); whether they have the right to vote, and if they have voted before atthe same or a different location. If both conditions are satisfied, person isallowed to vote. Over 50% of voters in the past election were never registeredbefore, and this system allowed them to vote. Also, turnout was almostthreefold of that in last electoral event.

Other areas whichentail the use of open source technologies are: the elections website (www.elections.eg – including publishing ofall relevant electoral information on maps), registration of out-of-governorate(province) voters, candidate registration, consolidation and transmission ofresults, registration of observers and media, issuance of candidateendorsements (for presidential elections) and a voter helpdesk.