If e-voting is NOT currently being used, what is the current status of e-voting in general?

The possible contribution of information and communication technologies to “mobile voting” in the country is essentially a result of simultaneously allowing “mobile voting” as well as traditional voting on Election Day itself. In fact, this possibility requires an electronic electoral register for all polling stations, and instantaneous and secure means of communication between polling stations which could be made possible through encrypted electronic communication with the aim of checking whether a certain voter who comes to a polling station to cast a “mobile vote” has already voted elsewhere and, if not, recording in the electoral register that he/she cast a 'mobile vote'.

Generalized electronic ballots for voting situated in polling stations has the inconvenience of requiring complex large-scale technological logistics, which raise technical problems of security and secrecy of voting and obscure the transparency of the electoral act for the general citizen, whilst having the advantages of facilitating and shortening the process of vote counting with maximum rigor. The other possible advantage of electronic voting is it facilitates “mobile voting” in the cases of local elections through allowing the secrecy of a small number of “mobile votes” to be effectively ensured by the electronic merging of a large number of votes.

Within this context and with the aim of obtaining data to consider the adoption of a system of electronic voting in polling stations The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) commissioned a study from Deloitte in 2006. The resulting report was published in March 2007 with the title “Final Report - Analysis of the Financial Impact of Electronic Voting in Portugal (in Portuguese) ”.