Belgium Makes Election Software Open to the Public

Jun 15, 2009

Anika Kehrer

The Department of the Interior-occupied voting agency has released the source code from its European election software.

The software packages Digivote and Jites have already been put to use for community elections as well as the European election which took place on June 7th. These voting software packages are also expected to remain in application in the future. The Belgian Department of the Interior released this information for transparency, as an introduction for documents pertaining to the Belgian election in December 2008 stated. The software is at present to go online (after the European election) because the Belgian government feared tampering would occur during the election.

The Belgian voting agency offers the source code for download in the form of a zip archive. Upon inspection, it is revealed that documentation and license information is not present. It is apparently not possible to disclose the software licensing information in the Belgian agencies, according to the European Information Service (OSOR).

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Welcome

I get this familiar feeling whenever an election year rolls around. I guess it is kind of like despair mixed with something more proactive, like maybe annoyance. I'm not talking about politics exactly, although I will admit that politics get pretty annoying. What really concerns me now is the backward nature of voting technology and the sense that nothing ever gets done about it.

more »

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