E-voting
One minute of your time can decide the future of the University or faculty for several years
Analysis of past elections has shown that voter turnout is higher in the case of electronic voting. Electronic voting is ensured by the e-voting module in the Integrated Study Information System and is anonymous and secure.
Electronic voting saves time and allows you to vote from anywhere without the need to physically go to the polling place, as was the case in the past – thus it brings a whole range of advantages.
Whether it will be possible to vote electronically is always decided by the academic senate of the University or faculty for specific elections. The management of VŠE cannot influence this decision in any way.
If you would like to vote in a modern and easier way – contact your senators and let them know your opinion.
We ask Vice-Rector for Informatics and Digitalisation Milan Nidl.
Vice-Rector for Informatics and Digitalisation Milan Nidl
Since when and how do electronic elections at VŠE actually work?
‘The e-voting module was launched at the beginning of 2021 as part of the study system. These are several election management applications (for administrators) and one application for voters, where the voter finds the ballots. The application also supports external voters who are not users of the study system. They are sent an e-mail with a unique link to the ballot without the need to log into the study system.
The module benefits from the fact that it is integrated in the study system because it is in the study system that we have registered all users and at the same time we also register bodies with their members and possible roles. This makes it very easy to create elections for any school body. It is also relatively simple to define a part of the academic community, for which pre-prepared conditions are used. Users have access to the application for creating e-elections precisely on the basis of their role at the authority (chairman or administration), or on the basis of a specific authorisation.
The application supports both public and secret elections. In secret elections, ballot encryption is used and it is not shown anywhere how someone voted (neither to the election administrator nor to IT). Additional security elements such as saving or encrypting private keys can be used by the administrator to decrypt ballots. It is possible for voters to securely verify that their vote has been counted without them or anyone else seeing how they voted.’
Who uses this tool and for what purpose?
‘The application is used by the Scientific Councils, the Academic Senate, the Accreditation Council, the Internal Evaluation Council and the Branch Councils, for the various votes they have on the agenda. These are both secret and public elections. As an example, I can cite the approval of members of various commissions, approval of annual reports, strategic plans, etc. Furthermore, in the module, voting takes place regularly within the habilitation commissions, where commission members vote by secret ballot on the appointment of a person as associate professor. In addition, elections are also created during the defence of dissertations.’
How is security handled?
‘The entire e-voting security solution does not allow vote manipulation, vote deletion, or vote forgery. Of course, it is not possible to present a specific complex solution here, but the implemented solution and the IT environment in which e-elections are implemented were audited according to the methodology of the National Cyber and Information Security Agency. Vulnerability tests from the internal and external network were part of the audit. Thus, VŠE can confirm election security, i.e. confidentiality, integrity and availability both during the actual implementation of the elections and during any eventual, even independent, review of the course of the elections.
All audit activities were carried out by companies that have the necessary certifications, according to ISO standards, for this field of security. They have professional and practical experience documented by references concerning their experience from extensive security projects within the Czech Republic. In addition to important references, they have also participated and are participating in expert teams in the creation and modification of legislation in the field of cyber security.’
How many elections have already taken place at VŠE using this system?
‘As of June 7, 2022, 275 elections have already taken place in the module. This number also includes a small amount of test elections, which were created by the authorities after the module was deployed, so that the members could test the agenda.’
What must the faculty representatives do if they want to vote for their AS electronically?
‘It is advisable to consult with the staff of the Informatics Centre in advance about the elections to the AS in order to define the members of the academic community who can vote, and to pass on current information to future election administrators. However, the application is already prepared for these elections, and if the academic community were to be defined in the same way as in 2021, elections can be established very quickly.’
How long does it take to vote electronically?
A direct link to the ballot will be sent to the voter’s e-mail address, or it can be found in the Voter Portal application in the study system. Subsequently, the voter chooses which elections (if there are more than one available at that moment) he/she wants to vote in and thus displays the ballot. In it, he/she ticks his/her choice/s, and in the case of public elections, he/she clicks once to send the vote, in the case of secret elections, it is a matter of two clicks, because there is an additional step of encrypting the vote. Logging out takes a maximum of one minute. To a large extent, voting is also done from mobile devices.’