If official election results processed by an electronic tabulation system, at which level results are entered into an electronic tabulation system?

Kreshnik Spahiu

Director of Department ofInformation Technology

During 2012, by-elections were announced in an average-size municipality of Kosovo, Ferizaj. With only one municipality to worry about, the Central Election Commission (CEC) saw a window of opportunity to explore alternative methods for publication of preliminary results. The CEC decided to pilot a project entitled K-vote, which aimed to publish preliminary results on election day, immediately after the completion of counting. The CEC deployed an operator in each of the 25 polling centres of Ferizaj. The operator was equipped with a laptop that was connected to internet using 3G USB-like devices. The results were being transmitted from each polling centre, through a software which compiled the data automatically and transmitted the results in the CEC website. The CEC managed to implement this project successfully, as the results were published accurately and in a timely manner immediately on election night.

The results published through K-vote for the 2013 local and 2014 general elections were widely accepted by political entities and the public in general.  In order to implement this project, the CEC engaged 798 people (operators), one in each polling center of Kosovo, who entered the data from all the polling stations within the polling center in which they were assigned. Each operator is equipped with a PC tablet which is connected to internet through sim-cards.  Each tablet contains a pre-configured web-based application, through which data is transmitted from polling centres directly to the CEC website.