Electoral Commission seeks electronic vote-counting system

The Electoral Commission has issued a request for information to conduct market research for the proof of concept of an electronic vote-counting solution.

“Counting and sorting of thousands of ballot papers received centrally from 110 polling centres and close to 700 ballot boxes is a large and delicate task,” the Commission said in its RFI.

“The consolidation of voting results requires thorough logistical planning and strong communication to carry out in a timely and secure manner. The current manual counting process, which is carried out in one central location, is long and laborious and, since Malta uses the single transferable vote system, the time to issue the official result takes days.

“The current national election results take 12 hours for the official result of the first count and up to four days for the full result to be issued after all the counts are worked out.”

They added that they are seeking an adequate solution that reduces the counting time while retaining the current ballot paper format, voting system and centralised counting centre.