Minsait goes to University: conference with students from the Complutense University of Madrid

From Minsait and the Electoral Processes Area, we are working on the creation of initiatives that promote the approach between the business and academic environments.

As a result of the partnership model between Minsait and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the third edition of the Open Day was celebrated for Master's students. A DEMO was carried out to explain the students the different solutions for voters identification, voting and counting, solutions that can be used in an election these days.

The last visit took place last February the12th. Some thirty students participated, mainly of the Master of Parliamentary Law, Elections and Legislative Studies of the UCM participated, but also of the Hispanic-French degree in Law (organized by the UCM and the University of Paris 1- Sorbonne). The objective was to complete their training by making them aware of the challenges of the electoral processes and to raise their awareness of the increasing incorporation of new technologies in the elections.

Figure 1: Visit of the Master program in Parliamentary Law, elections and legislative studies at the Complutense University, and of the UCM-Sorbonne Hispano-French Grade in Law.

The session started with a speech about the scalability and complexity of electoral processes, where Technology Director Pablo Sarrias introduced the Electoral Processes department explaining some of the projects developed from Minsait. After that, he asked the students to analyze the functioning of the voting machines and reflect on why the models presented were just prototypes. He also emphasized the additional security measures that would have to be implemented in order to use them in a real election, a topic that was discussed in a masterclass that Pablo Sarrias gave at the UCM facilities past 25th February.

During this day it was also discussed the problem of organizing an election in which all types of problems have to be faced: legislative, demographic, census, logistic, socio-cultural…At this point it was highlighted that each project must be adapted to the needs of the country, as there is no standard solution. It was also explained that the department of Electoral Processes has to study in depth each case, even having to recommend sometimes the adaptation of the electoral regulations to comply with the standards of modern democratic societies.

After the presentation, the technical team showed the working of Internet voting solutions, solutions of electronic voting machines and voter identification systems, electronic counting of ballots (e-counting). A new feature was presented, a new model of electronic voting machine developed by Minsait, which records the voting intentions of the voter and also allows the counting of votes and the generation and printing of the result reports, all configurable via QR codes.

Figure 2: Accessible electronic vote Onesait Democracy Elections Kiosk (Odek) Technology

At all times, the  students were highly participative asking questions and expressing great interest in the functioning of the different technologies presented. They even had the opportunity to test the system to enable the issuance of voting visually impaired, where a student was able to cast their vote in one of the solutions through an audio-guide.

The session ended with an informal discussion where students and teachers had the opportunity to exchange views with the reponsible of the organisation of these sessions.

For Minsait is a privilege to collaborate again with the Institut of Parliamentary Law, not only as part of our collaborative model with such a prestigious institution like the UCM, but above all for the common goals we share and the commitment to promote the transmission of knowledge to new generations, a pillar of modern societies.