The online voting system is a safe and efficient option, but it is premature to forecast when it will be officially implemented in the Republic of Moldova, said secretary of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Alexandr Berlinskii. According to him, it is not yet known if e-voting will be available at the next elections. To be able to vote through the Internet, the people need an electronic identity card or a digital signature, IPN reports.
The representative of the CEC assured that electronic voting will be an alternative voting instrument designed to make sure the electoral process is more accessible, inclusive and safe. By implementing the electronic voting system, the electoral authority aims to ensure access to the electoral process for citizens who face difficulties in travelling to polling stations.
“For an elector to be able to vote, this needs to have an electronic identity card or a digital signature that are provided by the authorities. It is later necessary to develop software for the voters to have access to it. It is too early to say when e-voting will be implemented. The voters’ trust in the electronic voting system is an important element. It can happen that all the mechanisms will be created to ensure the functioning of this system, but the citizens will not use it. In Estonia, during the first year of implementation, the voting rate was 1%. Many years were needed for the voters to start to trust this system,” CEC secretary Alexandr Berlinskii stated in the Special Edition on the public TV channel.
Moldova’s ex-aAmbassador to Estonia Victor Guzun said the Baltic states for years have used e-voting and in Estonia this became the safest voting option.
“In the last elections held in Estonia, half of the electors voted from home or in the states in which they were travelling. The future of electronic voting is bright in Estonia as this system there has been used for 17 years and has never been compromised. It was proven that this is a viable mechanism. Of all the early voting or distance voting options, online voting is the safest method. I’m sure that this mechanism will be applied in the Republic of Moldova too, which has a problem with the lack of voting alternatives in the diaspora. That’s why it is necessary to identify alternative voting methods,” said Victor Guzun.
The Central Election Commission recently approved the concept of the e-Voting system. According to this, as traditional voting on paper, e-voting consists of two steps – identification of the voter based on IDs compatible with the electronic identification system and voting itself. Within the IT system of the CEC, e-voting will be ensured by an information subsystem called e-Voting, which is part of the automated information system “Elections”.
