Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies - IFES

INTERNATIONAL DECISION PRINCIPLEELECTORAL STANDARDSVoting and counting technology can be used in almost any election, but it shouldbe used only if it meets all the requirements of that specific election.• Contacting Additional Suppliers —Depending on the initial responsefrom suppliers for information on theirproducts, and the number of supplierscontacted, it might be worth increasingthe number of electronic voting andcounting technology vendors contactedor generating a greater level of responsefrom those originally contacted.Surveying a larger number of productsmight help to find ones which do meetthe requirements.• Development of New Products — Itis possible that the requirementsdeveloped for the feasibility study areunique; products may not have yetbeen developed. This does not meanthat products cannot be developed tomeet the requirements. The FeasibilityStudy Committee may decide to requestvendors to consider the possibility ofdeveloping new products to meet thecriteria. In fact vendors may be very willingto adapt software or even hardware toemerging requirements as part of theirbusiness development strategy.It may be that all these options fail to provideelectronic voting and counting technologyproducts which meet the requirementsidentified in the feasibility study. In this case,the Feasibility Study Committee wouldconclude that the electronic voting andcounting technologies on the market do notmeet the needs of the electoral situation.This is an important caveat for finding thatcurrent electronic voting and countingtechnologies is not feasible. Of course,almost any election can be conducted usingan electronic voting or counting solution,but it is not necessarily the case that such a36Electronic Voting & Counting Technologies: A Guide to Conducting Feasibility Studies