Transitioning to Evoting: the Provote Project and the Trentino's Experience

The use of new technologies for voting can bring significant advantages, with respect to process improvement and accessibility; at the same time, it poses great risks, such as guaranteeing the security of the system and anonymity of the votes, and ensuring equal access to everyone (that is, eliminate digital-divide). Thus, even in various countries (such as Brazil, USA, India) voting electronically is a standard practice, several other countries look cautiously to the introduction of new technologies for voting. In this paper we report on the Trentino’s experience, where the local government is aiming at introducing eVoting systems for the next provincial elections in 2008. To do so, it is co-leading a multi-phased, multi-disciplinary project, in which research centres, university and the public administration work together to understand the concerns of the citizens and ensure the delivery of trusted, stateof-the-art eVoting system.