Scytls technology successfully used in the first binding Internet election in Austria

Scytl’s election management system EMS/RCP and Internet voting solution Pnyx have been successfully used by the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research to manage and execute the first binding Internet voting election in Austria: the May 2009 Austrian University Elections. It was one of the most complicated Internet elections ever carried out: 230,749 students from 21 different universities were able to cast votes for 376 simultaneous elections with over 100 parties and 2411 candidates. The complete process was managed by 21 independent electoral commissions at the Austrian universities and 1 national electoral commission. The students could cast a paper ballot or, if they had activated their citizen card, use the Internet voting channel. Overall voter turnout (paper and Internet) was 25.7% and turnout for the Internet voting channel was 16,6%. The Internet voting has proven to be a very effective alternative voting channel to the existing traditional paper ballots.