Category: Dutch

Committee report electronic voting

From April 26th until December 18th 2013 I was a member of the expert committee on voting computers. This committe was instituted to advise the Dutch Minister for the Interior on the feasability of re-introducing electronic voting methods.

In the past (2008, 2012) I have always been very critical about the way electronic voting was implemented in The Netherlands up to 2007. The lack of transparancy of this method and the impossibility of recounts made this fundamentally incompatible with real democracy and,
after some convincing by citizens, even the government agreed on this.

The commission recommends:

• The use of electronic aids to make the voting and counting processes more reliable and more accessible;
• To this end, account will be taken of the preconditions formulated by the commission;
• The introduction of a single nationwide voting system, consisting of a voting printer so that the voter can print his or her ballot paper and a scanner to count the votes electronically; This system can be made suitable for all voters;
• It should be clear in legislation that the paper process provides the guiding principle;
• Should the voting method proposed by the commission not be implemented, in whatever event it recommends the introduction of electronic counting linked to the introduction of a smaller ballot paper.

More details in the English Summary of the report. For all the entire report, press coverage and interviews go to the Dutch version of this blogpost.

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