Aberdeen E-voting Technology

Aberdeen in search of a technology firm to provide e-voting solutions to increase low turnout in the city.

17:29 06 August 2018

Aberdeen City Council is considering a number of e-voting solutions to encourage more residents to vote. At last year’s council elections, just 37.6per cent of the electorate cast their ballots and in the 2016 Holyrood elections, less than 50per cent of residents voted.

 

The local authority is now considering other ways to improve voting turnout, including the possibility of being able to vote online, through SMS text, electronic touchpads and even over the phone.

 

The council is now looking for a technology firms that can help them launch the proposed e-voting solutions and to develop a system that is fully auditable as well as allow various methods of voting to simultaneously take place.

 

A council spokesman said: “Electronic voting is employed with the objective of improving accessibility, convenience and therefore turnout.

 

“It is convenient to voters, secure and economical. It is well suited to the voting system which our community council elections use and ensures the counting of votes is quick and accurate.

 

“The current tendering process is for an estimated value of between £115,000 and £294,440 over a four-year period and is for all lots, that is printing and issuing poll cards, postal voting packs, ballot papers, postal vote management, electronic voting solutions and electronic counting system.”

 

Aberdeen South MP Ross Thomson said: “People in Aberdeen will remember being able to vote online during the referendum on the City Garden Project in 2012.

 

“That system was easy to use and allowed local residents to have their say from the comfort of their own homes.”