As a part of the project to reform the Election Information System, the Ministry of Justice has planned introducing e-voting at polling stations. The experiment was launched as a pilot project in 2005. To enable the pilot project the Act amending the Election Act (880/2006) was enacted. The Act is in force from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2008.
The Act will be applied in the Municipal Elections 2008 in three municipalities; Karkkila, Kauniainen and Vihti. Those entitled to vote in these three municipalities have the opportunity to vote electronically at the general advance polling stations and election day polling stations in these municipalities. For example, a voter from Helsinki can vote in advance in Karkkila, but only by paper ballot and not electronically. In the same way, a voter from Karkkila may vote in advance in Helsinki, but only by paper ballot. The goal is to gradually increase the number of municipalities where possibility for electronic voting is provided on the basis of the experiences gained in the pilot project.
At first electronic voting will be an alternative to traditional paper ballot voting, which means that in the initial stage it will also be possible to vote by paper ballot. However, the aim is achieve a widespread introduction of electronic voting in the future.
The goal has been to create a system that is so user-friendly and easy that anyone can use it. Electronic voting can be compared to using a cash machine. The voter does not need an electronic ID-card or other certificates to be able to vote electronically. An identity card with photograph is sufficient proof of identity.
In electronic voting the central principals for holding elections are secured (equal right to vote, secret and free elections) just like in traditional paper ballot voting. The system is based on reliable IT-solutions. The vote and the personal identity code of the voter are registered in the electronic ballot box via the voting terminal in an encrypted form, so that they cannot be linked to each other.
The supplier of the electronic voting system is the private IT-company TietoEnator. The information security solution is based on Pnyx.core, created by the Spanish software company SCYTL Secure Electronic Voting S.A.