BARCELONA, Spain--()--The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has successfully conducted the national legislative elections electronically allowing the French citizens residing abroad to vote by using the Internet voting solution provided by Scytl, a leading provider of secure election technology worldwide.
By offering remote Internet voting as a new voting channel in addition to postal and poll-site voting in 774 locations, France has become a leading country in allowing its expatriate voters to vote electronically during Parliamentary elections, paving the way for electoral innovation.
Marking a milestone in the History of e-Democracy
This project was implemented by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the aim of securing full access to the right to vote to the French voters based abroad, who had been facing important hurdles to cast their votes such as long distances to reach the polling place, ballot papers being sent to the wrong address, hefty administrative procedures or postal delays. During the two rounds that took place respectively from May 23 to 29 and from June 6 to 12, over 240,000 votes were cast electronically, representing over 55% of the total votes cast to directly elect 11 members to the French national parliament. For the first time ever, the Internet represents the most important voting channel in a national election, marking a significant milestone in the History of e-Democracy.
“I really enjoyed voting from home and avoiding long queues at the Embassy. The voting process was smooth and kept the solemnity of traditional processes. I highly recommend Internet voting and would be very pleased to use it in future elections.” said Alain M., French voter in Colombia.
Foolproof security
With over 40 patents in the field of election security, Scytl is an internationally renowned security expert in the field of Internet voting. By offering a unique technology that encrypts and digitally signs online votes before they are cast, directly in the voter’s device, Scytl is able to prevent anyone, including system administrators, from violating voter privacy or jeopardizing the election results.
This technology, implemented by Scytl during the 2012 French Parliamentary elections was audited prior to the launching of the project by the French Security Agency (ANSSI) who has consistently found its security and technology to be accurate and reliable. Following the ANSSI evaluation and audit, both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Interior announced the RGS Homologation of Scytl’s Internet voting platform; being the first and only Internet voting solution to be ‘RGS homologated’ in France. Additionally, an independent auditing firm verified the compliance of Scytl’s e-voting system with the recommendations of CNIL (French Personal Data Protection Agency). As requested by CNIL. Scytl used the datacenter of its partner ATOS to host the voting platform. This datacenter, located in Vendôme (France), is considered to be one of the most secured datacenters in Europe.
“The availability, reactivity and professionalism demonstrated by Scytl’s team has allowed us to conduct with success an election that, considering its scope and stakes, represented a leading milestone worldwide. Our experts, who audited Scytl’s Internet voting system, Pnyx, before and during the election process, have all praised the quality and integrity of its cryptographic technology. On the other hand, their extensive experience as well as the continuous support we benefited from during the different phases of the project were of great value in such a sensitive election”, said David Perez, Director of the electronic voting project at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
ABOUT SCYTL
Scytl is an international technology company providing state-of-the-art electronic voting and electoral modernization solutions that have been successfully used by governments across the world for the last ten years. Scytl’s solutions have been successfully used in numerous countries such as the United States, Canada, the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UAE, India and Australia, between others. Scytl is based in Barcelona, Spain with its U.S. headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland and offices in Florida, Toronto, New Delhi, Athens, Kiev and Singapore. Scytl is a portfolio company of leading international VC funds Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker SCR. More information is available at www.scytl.com.