Electronic Voting Systems have assumed an ever-growing major role in the performance of parliamentary activities as well as in small legislative assemblies.
Members during legislation activities are called upon to cast their votes even hundreds of times a day, above all in large-sized hemicycles such as the European Parliament. To better understand the quantity of voting activity traffic, you only have to observe the number of votes cast during plenary sessions performed in the Strasbourg and Brussels Hemicycles.
According to the analytics published by the European Parliament , over the current legislation commencing from 2014, for example, during the plenary sessions, the European Parliamentary Members actually voted 1253 times.
This amount would surely multiply until 2019, the year when the current Parliamentary mandate will terminate, since during the previous legislation lasting from 2009 through to 2014, the number of operations involving voting by the Members, including those performed with the Electronic Voting System, reached a total of 23,533.
The highest number was arrived at in 2013, when during plenary sessions, the European Parliamentary Members cast their preferences for a total of 6,639 votes cast. Considering this great number of operations it is therefore easy to see how the introduction of electronic voting systems has greatly stepped up the voting process and the parliamentary activities involved.
Even though the traditional hand raising is still one of the most frequently used methods for casting votes in Parliament, the electronic voting system still remains the most efficient tool to ensure speed and accuracy during voting operations as well as the recordings of the acts involved in each single vote cast.
Electronic voting is also indispensable during open voting (not nominal), for example when votes are cast by the two sides and the difference of votes that are "for" or "against" is very slight. Consequently during counting and estimating results of the votes, they may easily be contested.
Using electronic voting further becomes essential when voting for a law that requires a qualified majority such as two thirds of Parliament or when a secret ballot has to be cast.
Since Eurel Informatica S.p.a. is well aware of the requirements of Parliamentary hemicycles, we continue to invest in innovation and research for electronic voting systems that are always more avant garde, able to meet all requirements that arise from Assembly activities and an ongoing guarantee to ensure speed, safety and transparency for democratic activities.
Photo credit: DubeFranz via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
