Electronic voting to be introduced in all Brussels

A large majority of the General Affairs Committee of the Brussels parliament voted in favor of e-voting in next municipal, regional and federal elections. The committee adopted the proposal by 13 votes for and one vote against. Ecolo, a green francophone party, voted against. The proposal will be put to the vote in the plenary on 24 June.

The preferred voting system has been conclusively used in previous elections in two municipalities of Brussels.

According to the chairman of the committee, Charles Piqué (PS), the system (unlike those still used in the 17 other municipalities of Brussels), has the advantage of allowing the citizens-voters to verify their vote.

The system includes also a manual control of the e-voting results by printing a voting report that displays a barcode and the text of the vote cast.

There a proposals to improve the system on a number of points. Thus, the barcode scanner to verify the correspondence between the cast vote and the recorded vote will be located in a specific booth and disconnected from the voting machine.

Furthermore, a systematic partial manual recount of election figures will be operated in at least one polling station in each municipality. Other legislative changes or recommendations include strengthening the transparency of the system and the role of a panel of experts.

The Brussels Times (Source: Belga)


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