Electronic register of voters to be used in 2011 elections

The electronic electoral roll that was successfully tested at the May 16 new local elections in Sangera will be used again in the second round of voting that will be held in the town on May 30, members of the Central Election Commission (CEC) told a news conference. At national level, the system will be implemented in 2011, Info-Prim Neo reports. A survey carried out by CBS-AXA on a sample of 826 persons shows that 85.5% of the voters are satisfied with the electronic register of voters that was introduced on a trial basis. However, the fifth part of the respondents consider the electronic system is imperfect, while 0.6% think it can be controlled by hackers. 0.2% of the respondents said the secrecy of the vote is not guaranteed. Asked where they found their names easier – in the computer or on paper, 58.1% of those questioned said in the computer, 31.6%said on paper, while the rest avoided answering. CEC secretary Iurie Ciocan said a number of shortcomings were identified when testing the register. They concern the Internet connection, the qualifications of the operators, the quality of the data included in the register and the standardization of these data. The Commission's vice president Renata Lapti said greater attention will be paid in the future to the technical problems and the identification of the general civic education divisions. “We realized that the voter needs a lot of information. Many of the voters did not use the register because they did not know how. That's why we need civic education,” Renata Lapti said. Electoral officials will be trained to prepare the voters for casting their ballots through the Internet. The electronic electoral register will be implemented at national level in several stages, said Iurie Ciocan. Initially, there will be created a central register at the CEC, from where the electoral lists will be sent to the electoral offices in a centralized way. Currently, the mayors' offices compile the lists and submit them to the electoral offices for being verified. At the second stage, all the electoral offices of Moldova will be connected to the Internet. The Central Electoral Commission in cooperation with the UNDP-funded Electoral Support to Moldova Project managed to improve the transparency and quality of the electoral process by ensuring a direct connection between the polling station and the voters database stored at the CEC. The electronic register of voters was created at a cost of 33 million lei.