Although the Parliament possesses an electronic voting system since 2014, MPs do not use it. The deputies still vote by raising their hand.
Electronic voting is also among the components of the e-Parliament Information System, to be implemented by mid-2019.
In a reply to IPN, the Parliament's Directorate General for Communication and Public Relations mentions that Parliament's Secretariat is beginning the procedure of installing the software pilot version and its testing. "We reiterate that the project implementation was launched on September 10, 2018, and between September 2018-May 2019 the working group of the Parliament’s Secretariat had numerous meetings with the company in charge of implementation so as to describe all the workflows, which are supposed to be included in the IS e-Parliament”, is mentioned in the answer.
The Directorate states the completion of the e-voting component is a process that requires ensuring the compatibility of the IT solution with the equipment that has been already installed in the plenary meeting hall. The implementation team needs to carry out a series of works and tests that will ensure their compatibility.
In 2014 there was an attempt to implement the electronic voting system, which failed in the absence of other components necessary for proper functioning (electronic circulation of documents and the new website of the legislature)”, the reply to IPN says.
Parliament's Communication and Public Relations Directorate also mentions that international practice suggests that developing an e-Parliament system from scratch is very costly, reaching several million euros. Therefore, following a competition with the participation of three international companies, there was contracted an international company which proposed its own generic software, to be configured according to the needs and particularities of the internal processes within the Parliament. UNDP Moldova managed the procurement process according to its procedures, ensuring a competitive and transparent process.
The contract amounts to $378,000. Recently UNDP paid the company $ 75,000 for the first deliverable under the contract.