The Swiss Open Systems User group /ch/open wants the country’s cantons to use Geneva’s eVoting solution. The Canton of Geneva is working to make the source code of its Internet voting solution available under an open source software licence sometime next year.
In January, the group objected to a decision by the Canton of Freiburg to use a proprietary eVoting solution. “Election tools should remain in our own hands, and not be under the control of a private, foreign company”, the group said in a statement.
Last autumn, nine Swiss cantons, including Freiburg, ended their eVoting consortium. The group gave up their joint-development of an eVoting solution, following a Federal Council decision that eVoting would not be allowed for the Federal elections.
However, eVoting is allowed for other elections, and the cantons are now looking for alternative solutions. The Canton of Freiburg decided to use the proprietary system promoted by the government-owned Swiss Post. This system is provided by a Spanish company, with links to the defence industry, objects /ch/open.
Fundamental
“This is a missed opportunity for Switzerland’s own open source solution, that of the Canton of Geneva”, explains /ch/open board member Gerhard Andrey.
Geneva announced in August last year that it would make the source code for its eVoting solution available as open source.
“Making the source code open will allow us to answer fundamental question”, Le Temps, a Swiss news site, quoted initiator Anja Wyden Guelpa, Geneva’s Chancellor of State as saying. Making the code open helps guarantee its safety, the Chancellor explained. “We want maximum security and transparency.”