Updated European Standards for E-voting

The Council of Europe is the only international organization to have issued recommendations on the regulation of the use of e-voting. The 2004 Recommendation to member States, Rec(2004)11 and the two 2010 Guidelines on certification and on transparency were recently repealed and replaced by Rec(2017)5 on Standards for e-voting and the associated Guidelines on its implementation. We discuss the 2017 Recommendation and the main novelties introduced by it. The Recommendation extends the definition of e-voting to include pure e-counting. It enlists 49 standards which set objectives that e-voting should fulfill to comply with the principles and conditions for democratic elections of the European electoral heritage. Detailed guidelines for the implementation of the objectives are collected in a lower level document, the Guidelines on the implementation of the provisions of Rec(2017)5. The guidelines are expected to be completed through further work. The main differences between the old and the new Council of Europe standards on e-voting are outlined. Correlations are illustrated. The expected use, impact and evolution of the Recommendation and Guidelines are briefly explained.