Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

Good Practices and InnovATIONS in Public Governance
ter referendum and contingency plan, as well as majority elections and proportional
elections with predefined party lists. For majority elections, the system not
only accommodates a predefined list of candidates, it even allows for elections
where all citizens are eligible to be elected, since the full electorate is stored in the
system. Moreover, the system allows individual definition of the opening times of
the electronic ballot boxes. Even the coding of the votes can be done by each community
individually. The voting officers receive the decoding keys with all the
passwords to decode the votes on voting day. To prevent citizens from casting their
vote multiple times, several safety features have been installed, which are activated
centrally or by the local authorities.
The development of the Zurich e-voting system has cost a total amount of 2.5 million
Swiss Francs and has annual reoccurring operational costs of 0.5 million Swiss
Francs, which amounts to approximately 4 Swiss Francs per e-vote. The e-voting
system for Internet voting and elections can be found at: evoting.zh.ch. A fully working
emulation of the Zurich e-voting system for Internet and mobile phone elections
and referenda can be tested at: evotingdemo.zh.ch
The Zurich e-voting system has been successfully tested and applied for federal, local
and organisational elections and referenda. It was first tested by the Zurich University
board election in 2005, followed by a national referendum. The testing phase
was concluded with a proportional election in April, 2006. Since then, e-voting Zurich
is in use in three communities in the Canton Zurich; however, all 171 communities
could be linked up instantly, as soon as the Swiss Government lifts the 10%
electorate restriction for e-voting. Moreover, its service-oriented structure can accommodate
any other Swiss canton, or any public and private organisation in the
world whishing to employ e-voting. This world-wide unique solution to e-voting,
which was developed in conjunction with Unisys, was awarded the prize for best
software in 2005 by the Swiss ICT society. Its compelling features include flexible
compliance with complex voting concepts, service-oriented modular structure allowing
for flexible extensions, and remarkably high security standard.
The broad range of integrated technologies promoted citizen involvement in public
decision making processes, while the full integration of the digital system with the
traditional ballot box system prevented the possibility of a digital divide among citizens.
Clearly, some initial increase of participation in elections and referenda is due
to the novelty of the system. However, it is expected that e-voting Zurich will contribute
to a higher citizen involvement in public decision making issues.
The Zurich e-voting system was awarded the Swiss ICT prize for best software in 2005.
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