Today I cleaned my office desk, packed my stuff and left E-Voting.CC.

My successor Manuel Kripp will take over now and I'm ready now for my new challenge!

Looking forward to this and I'll keep you posted how it's moving forward.

Thanks to everybody who supported me in the past!

The past five days have been one of the most interesting but intensive days in my life!

In the first Austrian election with an E-Voting channel, 2.161 students participated!

Now the next steps are coming up:

1.) Updating the paper-based voting directory with the used voting rights of the e-voters

2.) Have the voting directories printed

3.) Start the paper-based election and

finally

4.) count the results on Thursday, 28th of May!

So a lot of work and an experience of a lifetime lies before me and I'm looking forward to it ...

Today the first legally binding e-voting in Austria was started at 8:00.

see the e-learning tool for yourself how the process works.

The first students have already voted, and I'm really happy that finally this project that I've been working on for so long became reality ...

Today a premiere occured, for the first time it is possible to check one's voting rights online via the Internet.

All students can check for themselves using the Citizen Card at https://wahlberechtigung.oeh-wahl.gv.at/votingrights/

Today I'm invited to present the e-voting project in the monday talk of the Austrian Magazine DerStandard in the House of Music in the first district in Vienna.

It will be a very interesting and hefty debate with

Prof. Funk (Vienna University)
Prof. Purgathofer (Technical University Vienna)
Samir Al Mobayyed (Student Union)
and myself ...

come and hear for yourself:

Haus der Musik, Seilerstätte 30, A-1010 Vienna
30th March 2009, 19.30

Folllowing the E-Voting debate in Austria for quite some time, you can only wonder.

On 1st of February 2001 Dr. Graf, member of the freedom party, made the application to the parliament that e-voting should be introduced in the student union.

Now in 2009 he wants to get rid of it and makes a new application to the parliament where he demands to stopp e-voting for the student union elections in May 2009.

Philipp Aichinger reported about this in today's "Die Presse" on page 3.
Read for yourself :-)

The public discussion around E-Voting in Austria has intensified - much more even through the (more positive than expected) decision by the German Constitutional Court. The court ruled that E-Voting is legal however electronic means in voting have to enable voters to check the result.

As this point and other topics around e-voting intensify the Ministry for Science and Research who oversees the project on E-Voting for the Student Union has launched an information campaign. See below for two advertisements which have appeared in the press over the past days.


A student in a tent in the amazonas wanting to e-vote



And then also last week the official website was launched - see below:

The consultation for the dates when the student union (ÖH-Wahlen) shall take place was started yesterday. This will be the first time E-Voting will be offered in Austria.

Comments can be made until 26th of february 2009.

The main points are:

Paper based voting is to be held from 26th to 28th of May 2009.

Internet based voting is to be held from 18th to 22nd of May 2009.

Further the decree regulates the amount of mandates the Bundesvertretung (national body of the student union) holds at least 78 mandates.

See more here.

Read it also in the RIS here.

The Austrian Ministry has put an information on the new E-Voting System for the Student Union Elections to their website.

Read more here.

Today I will give a presentation on the project I'm working quite heavily on - e-voting for the student union ... I'm quite proud to be part of this project since the beginning, 8,5 years ago.

I will post how the enquete went!