This question is posted by ACE on behalf of PN member Abdurashid Solijonov.

Question

I am currently conducting a global survey among EMBs on the usage of open source technology. 

To complement this effort, I am interested in any information members of the PN may provide about country experiences with open source systems, especially for election specific applications such as party, candidate and voter registration, boundary delimitation, results transmission and management, electronic voting, etc. 

Summary of Responses 

Practitioners' Network (PN) members referred to international examples and their expertise to discuss open source technology. A summary of the responses follows: 

1) General Recommendations 

• You may use open source software for public information or non-critical information purposes, such as web pages, web forms to consult where your polling station is located, development of android or IOS apps and so far.
• For data security, storage and data processing, for the development of electoral applications like a party, candidates and voter registration, boundary delimitation, results transmission and management, electronic voting, etc.
• EMBs should promote the creation of proprietary software that is open source because it helps to maintain the credibility and safety of institutional management.

2) Important Things to Consider 

• Transparency and publicity are important. 
• The electoral body shall determine what information or programs may be exposed to the public without their safety and reliability being affected. 
• They can be exposed to the public because the credibility of the electoral process is guaranteed.
• Most EMBs have a mixture of solutions - some in-house, some procured.  Most EMBs have a limited pool of IT human resource - this often restricts their choice of technologies.
• As more countries edge towards electronic voting, there's an aspect that is becoming increasingly important - that is, access by stakeholders to the source code of mission-critical electronic voting and counting applications. 
• Such source code may not necessarily be open - but under non-disclosure or escrow agreements, they may be made available for scrutiny by appropriately-skilled stakeholders.
• In some countries the source code of electronic or internet voting systems is completely open. 
• A related subject is the third party assessment, testing and possible certification of such source code.

3) International examples 

• Egypt
• Egypt has held 7 electoral events since the start of 2011. In all of these, the EMB has relied heavily on open source technologies in numerous areas of the electoral process.
• The most significant area in which open source technologies are utilized are from polling station inquiry services. Voters are assigned automatically to polling stations, according to the address from their ID cards. Accordingly, over 54 million voters need to inquire ahead of every electoral event about their polling station information
• This information is made available through multiple delivery channels (website, call centre, SMS, mobile apps, gadget, etc...), which are all completely based on open source software. 
• Even with limited hardware, the system is able to serve up to 50 million inquires per electoral event.
• Another important use of open source software is for the new out-of-country voting model that has been recently adopted. 
• No registration is required, and all eligible voters are to go to any of the 141 embassies and consulates around the world. 
• Before a person gets to vote, two conditions are checked through an online system (based on FOSS); whether they have the right to vote, and if they have voted before at the same or different location. 
• Over 50% of voters in the past election were never registered before, and this system allowed them to vote. 
• Also, turnout was almost threefold of that in last electoral event.
• Other areas which entail the use of open source technologies are:
• The elections web site (www.elections.eg), registration of out-of-governorate (province) voters, candidate registration, consolidation and transmission of results, registration of observers and media, Issuance of candidate endorsements (for presidential elections).
• Nepal
• Election Commission of Nepal has decided to move its data centre into open source software. 
• This will ultimately benefit the commission through providing flexibility on future enhancements of the existing software, extend or adapt new value to products, and avoid vender lock-ins. 
• Also, it is affordable and cost effective for developing countries like Nepal.

External Resources 

• ‘Linked Data for Elections Results’ This website has joined-up Electoral Results with Parties data:  http://linked.opendata.cz/en [Modified; original hyperlink broken] 
• ‘International IDEA- ICTs in Elections Database’:  http://www.idea.int/elections/ict/
• ‘International IDEA’:  http://www.idea.int/publications/open-source-technology-in-elections/ 

Contributing Members 

• Abdurashid Solijonov
• Ronan McDermott
• Victor Hugo Ajila
• Mathieu Carlier
• Sujit Shrestha
• Francisco Barrera
• Mohamed Mansour
• Rafael Guillen Urrutia

You may use open source software for public information or non critical information purposes, such as web pages, web forms to consult where your polling station is located, development of android or Ios apps and so far.

For data security, storage and data processing, for the development of electoral applications like a party, candidates and voter registration, boundary delimitation, results transmission and management, electronic voting, etc. always my recommendation is the use of major and Pro Databases and Development tools, because during an election process you constantly are going to need all the technical support that you can have.

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

The most significant area in which open source technologies are utilized are polling station inquiry services. Voters are assigned automatically to polling stations, according to the address from their ID cards. Accordingly, over 54 million voters need to inquire ahead of every electoral event about their polling station information (polling center name, address, polling station number, list number, map coordinates, etc...). This information is made available through multiple delivery channels (website, call center, SMS, mobile apps, gadget, etc...), which are all completely based on open source software. Even with limited hardware, the system is able to serve up to 50 million inquires per electoral event.

Another important use of open source software was for the new out-of-country voting model that was recently adopted. No registration is required, and all eligible voters are to go to any of the 141 embassies and consulates around the world. Before a person gets to vote, two conditions are checked through an online system (based on FOSS); whether they have the right to vote, and if they have voted before at the same or a different location. If both conditions are satisfied, person is allowed to vote. Over 50% of voters in the past election were never registered before, and this system allowed them to vote. Also, turnout was almost threefold of that in last electoral event.

Other areas which entail the use of open source technologies are: the elections website (www.elections.eg), registration of out-of-governorate (province) voters, candidate registration, consolidation and transmission of results, registration of observers and media, issuance of candidate endorsements (for presidential elections).

El tema del código abierto, tiene sus condiciones, especialmente en lo concerniente a información  electoral, que es tan criticada por propios y extraños, sometida a las auditorias y a los conceptos públicos,  si su propósito es el de la economía y la transparencia, pues adelante tendrá que hacer inversiones en seguridad, también tiene que tener en cuenta las herramientas de computo (hardware), en que van a estar funcionando sus aplicativos y los repositorios o bases de datos, estas últimas deben ser muy robustas,  el comentario de R. Guillen, muy  acertado en que los datos y aplicaciones sensibles es mejor no exponerlas,  en cambio hay temas a los cuales no se les da mayor importancia en la programación, como a los temas de sistemas de información y formularios instalados en la web, que pueden ser robustos pero no riesgosos y criticables.

There are lots of myths about an open source software and people have some misconceptions about it. In market lots of open source software available so end user need to choose as per their requirement properly. There are some common myth about open source software.

·         Open source software lacks support from the vendors.

·         Open source software is not for Enterprise level software.

·         Open source software are developed by armatures developer.

·         Open source software are insecure.

·         Open source software are unsustainable and many more.

All of the above myths are misconception. Even for the open source software, paid support can be obtain if required. Now a days many big organization are using enterprise level software using open source software. Open source software maintain high level of software standard and supported by professional group of developer and they are constantly updating and adding new features.  Using an open source software can offer lots of compelling benefits against the proprietary software.

Election Commission of Nepal has also decided to move its data center into open source software. This will ultimately give benefit to commission by flexibility on future enhancement of the existing software, extend or adapt new value added product, avoid vender lock-in and it is affordable and cost effective for the developing countries like Nepal.

As your question is about Open Source Technology, I wanted to point you towards the Linked Open Data technology. It is a new way to publish data according to open source and standard data format. It is a technology pushed by the WWW consortium.

 A lot of Elections Data is being published as Open Data. See an example of Linked Data for Elections Result. This website has joined-up Electoral Results with Parties data. Paste the following link in your browser: http://linked.opendata.cz/volby/www/

It is in Czech and you have to use the browser translator to see it in english.

Este debate es muy importante en la gestión de los EMBs, porque se trata trata de una cuestión que involucra varios derechos fundamentales. Por un lado está la transparencia y publicidad, de manera que el organismo electoral deberá determinar que información o programas pueden ser expuestos al público sin que se afecte la seguridad y confiabilidad de los mismos: y por otra parte, existen otros programas y procesos que no se pueden exponer al público porque en ellos se garantiza la credibilidad de los procesos electorales.

En todo caso, la producción de software para temas electorales debe hacerse en código abierto por las ventajas que representa no estar sujeto a licencias de empresas comerciales transnacionales, que podrían afectar de alguna manera por el uso de los  mismos.

Por lo expuesto, considero que los EMBs deberían impulsar la creación de software propio, de código abierto, porque eso les ayuda a mantener la credibilidad y seguridad de su gestión institucional.

Good question, but needs to be put in the broader context of two related questions, that is:

1. Does the EMB build it's electoral applications in-house or does it buy solutions in the marketplace?
2. Where the EMB buys solutions (or outsources development), does the EMB own the intellectual property of the procured solutions? 

Most EMBs have a mixture of solutions - some in-house, some procured.  Most EMBs have a limited pool of IT human resource - this often restricts their choice of technologies.

I am entirely neutral in the proprietary versus open-source software debate.  I believe that each country, each solution, indeed, may require a different approach.  I've never known a problem to arise that had, at its core, OSS versus proprietary.

As more countries edge towards electronic voting, there's an aspect that is becoming increasingly important - that is, access by stakeholders to the source code of mission-critical electronic voting and counting applications. Such source code may not necessarily be open - but under non-disclosure or escrow agreements, may be made available for scrutiny by appropriately-skilled stakeholders. In some countries (I believe Norway is one - but go look it up!) the source code of electronic or internet voting systems is completely open. 

A related subject is the third party assessment, testing and possible certification of such source code.

In my experience, the most commonly used OSS in EMB's where I've worked is databases - MySQL, Postgres and similar OSS RDBMS appear across many electoral applications. Many EMB's who have a website will likely use Apache and one or more of the many OSS content management solutions (Joomla, for example). At their data centres, many EMBs use Linux-based operating systems

If you haven't already done this, I'd suggest you build an online survey (using something like SurveyMonkey or QuestionPro) and have as many EMB's complete it. You could list categories of OSS and ask EMB's if they use any or all of them. You could list key electoral applications and ask EMB's whether they use OSS or proprietary or a mix of solutions. It would be good also to find out if EMBs own the source code to solutions they procure. I'd also include questions about in-house versus outsource, and perhaps ask about the availability of support and relevantly qualified IT people in their country. Perhaps the results could be shared on ACE PN?  Or submit it as a case-study paper as solicited by ACE! Good luck.

International IDEA recently launched a new ICTs in Elections Database, which may be of interest to the elections community. http://www.idea.int/elections/ict/ 

International IDEA has done a survey that gives details on the subject. One may see this on the following link: 

http://www.idea.int/publications/open-source-technology-in-elections/