Information Communication

Technology use in Mongolian Elections

Presenter: Tamir Zorigt

System Security Engineer

General Election Commission of Mongolia

Outline

• Brief introduction about Mongolia

• Reasons to use Automated Election System /AES/ in Mongolia

• The system requirements for AES selection

• About AES of Mongolia and its use in elections

• Lessons Learned

Part I Brief Introduction about Mongolia

Brief information about Mongolia

Area: 1.5 mln. sq. km

Population 3 million.

Political system: Parliament (76 seats)

Administration: Capital city (Ulaanbaatar)

21 aimags (province): an aimag is the first-level administrative subdivision.

340 soums (subprovince): soum is the second level administrative subdivision

of Mongolia.

The capital city Ulaanbaatar is divided in 9 districts

Part II Reasons to use Automated Election System in Mongolia

What was the reasons to use AES in Mongolia

Previously, the election organization

related procedures such as voter

registration, voting , vote counting was

conducted almost by traditional based

method (manual & paper based) which

have been somehow depended on

human operation.

What was the reasons to use AES in Mongolia

The riot broke out on July 1st 2008

which was sparked by

allegations of fraud surrounding

the Parliamentary election held 3

days earlier.

Consequently 5 people were killed

and about more than 700 people

were arrested by police.

Part III The system requirements for AES selection

The system requirements for voter registration system

• Online registered voters’ list

• voter registration system based on fingerprint

The system requirements for voting machine

• Able to conduct more than 1 elections simultaneously

• Secure ballot paper

• Backup Battery

• Off-line environment

• Offline report printing

• Make copy of ballot’s image files

• Result file transmission

How many options are introduced?

Miru Systems (South Korea)

Voter identification System

Touch-Screen Voting System

Election Systems & Software (USA)

Optical Scan Paper Ballot Systems

Dominion Voting Systems (CAN)

Image Cast Precinct (ICP)

Part IV About AES of Mongolia and its use in elections

Parts of Automated Election System of Mongolia

1. Candidate registration system

2. Voter registration system

3. Election management system

A.Election event designer

B.Voting machine

C.Result tabulation system

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election Election day Post Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

Testing & Certification

Voter’s registration

Vote casting and counting

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Election final result posting online

Candidates’ registration

Pre Election

Candidates’ registration

• Its works in Virtual Private Network environment (from

election district committees to central server)

• District committee staff sends candidate information

through web based application to our central server

• After finish candidate registration, they print sample

ballot paper from our CRS for proofreading purpose

• At the end they send stamped and signed sample

ballot paper image to GEC

Part 1 Candidate registration system

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election Election day Post Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

Testing & Certification

Voter’s registration

Vote casting and counting

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Election final result posting online

Candidates’ registration

Pre Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

• It works in offline environment

• It imports election related data from spreadsheet which

exported from CRS

• It makes design of ballot paper

• It does voting machine related configuration such as

• Central server IP address

• Opening and closing passwords for polling station

managers

• Programming of magnetic key for poll worker

Part 3.A. Election event designer of EMS

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election Election day Post Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

Testing & Certification

Voter’s registration

Vote casting and counting

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Election final result posting online

Candidates’ registration

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election

Testing & Certification

• Technical test

• Logic Accuracy test

• Tests with parties and civil society organization

• “Certification working group” tests

• Data transmission test from each polling station

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election Election day Post Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

Testing & Certification

Voter’s registration

Vote casting and counting

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Election final result posting online

Candidates’ registration

Election day

Voter’s registration

• Civil Registration Office prepares

voters’ list

• It works in offline environment

• Primary method is fingerprint based

registration (system shows voter’s

picture on the screen for observers)

• Secondary method is national ID card

based registration for emergency

(system gives additional signal and

shows voter’s picture on the screen

for observers)

+

+

Part 2 Voter registration system

• Register voter by fingerprint and electronic ID card

• Provide a receipt to the voter that authorizes the voter to receive a ballot

• Produce and Display statistical reports

• Print these reports every hour

+ +

Part 2 Voter registration system

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election Election day Post Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

Testing & Certification

Voter’s registration

Vote casting and counting

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Election final result posting online

Candidates’ registration

Election day

Vote casting and counting

• It works in offline environment

• It has 2 different password for opening

and closing of polling (polling station manager

keeps it)

• It has magnetic key (poll worker keeps it)

• It has 2 memory card which sealed from

working group of certification ( it saves

ballot paper image file, vote count,

system log and configuration)

• It encrypts special data before save on

cards

• Every voting machine has unique ballot

paper

• It has preconfigured modem for result file

transmission purpose which connects

only to the protected network

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Part 3b voting machine

ZERO report RESULT report

Part 3b voting machine

• Scan and identify ballot

• Count vote and save images in

memory

• Consolidate voting results

• Transmit voting result to central

server

Part 3.B. voting machine

Transmission of voting result

Only ONE central server

State total precincts 1896

Data transmitted by 5

different GSM, CDMA

and Satellite network

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election Election day Post Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

Testing & Certification

Voter’s registration

Vote casting and counting

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Election final result posting online

Candidates’ registration

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Provides copied image files to party observers.

- All scanned ballots formed in image.

- Bottom part of image file shows how ballot

scanned on ICP

Election day

An overview of Automated Election System procedures

Pre Election Election day Post Election

Ballot paper designing,

voting machine

configuration

Testing & Certification

Voter’s registration

Vote casting and counting

Report Printing and Result

Transmission to Central

Server

Ballot Image burning on

CD by the request from

observers

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Election final result posting online

Candidates’ registration

Post Election

Result tabulation and Live Screening

Manual recounting up to 50% of the

polling stations

(by random selection, according

to the Election Law)

Part 3.C. report tabulation system

How many proofs left after use AES in Mongolian elections

• Voter registration database on registration computer

• Voter registration on paper

• Ballot papers

• Ballot image files (already provided to observers)

• Printed result tapes (already provided to observers)

• Manual recounting results of up to 50% of polling stations

• Encrypted result files on central server

• Tabulated result of election on central server (broadcasted live on TVs)

What is advantages of AES of Mongolia

• Fast Results

• Security

• Control and Reports

• Efficient Operations

Difficulties faced while using AES

● 300 out of 1998 polling stations are resided in a destination without mobile network:

- About 100 places were used satellite network which is costly because of the renting and installation fee.

Moreover, the installation takes long time.

- Rest of the polling stations were moved to another places where the mobile network is available

● Current ballot paper is much more expensive than the traditional ones /price before 6-12 cents, current 618-640 cents/

- In some cases it requires reprint the ballot paper, where misspelling of the names and needs to exclude the

candidate’s name from the ballot paper in relation with the violation of related law and regulation*

● The destination of the each polling station in countryside is far...

- The voting machine delivery always have been under the risk of damage of the equipment due to the bad road

condition in the countryside

- In some cases, polling staff and police officers were not able to vote due to the deployment away from their

registered polling stations

Part V Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

Creation of electronic voter registration system (online, offline)

Mobile network coverage to be broadened (instead of using satellite network)

Selection of voting machine Ballot paper based voting system (OMR and OCR)

SMS voting system

E-Voting system

Commercial or Open source

Public monitoring on the procedures of AES as open & transparent as it possible

Less manual work on voting and counting procedures

Less disputes from any stakeholders on organization of elections

Thank you for your attention