Information in English
Welcome to Austrian election issues!
You are now on the election website of the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs. Electoral information available in German on this website is directed towards Austrian citizens staying or resident abroad - as well as to EU citizens resident in Austria eligible to participate in Austrian elections of the members of the European Parliament. On the latter, information is available also in other languages including English.
A text on the Austrian system of remote voting - i.e. "voting where the casting of the vote is done by a device not controlled by an election official" - in English was published by the Council of Europe's Commission for Democracy Through Law ("Venice Commission").
Austria has been hosting twice already, an expert election seminar of the countries of the 'Regional Partnership' - i.e. of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia - involving also experts from other countries. Issues discussed included including changes in domestic legislation, external voting/voting from abroad, EP elections, OSCE election aspects, and e-voting. The contributions as well as legal texts are available in English for the 2003 seminar and the 2004 seminar.
In summer 2008, from 6 to 9 August, already for the third time, a top-level international academic conference on e-voting will be held at Hofen Castle (Vorarlberg, near Bregenz). It will be organised by the Competence Center for Electronic Voting and Participation (E-Voting.CC), Vienna, under the auspices of the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe. Please find here more details on the conference.
Furthermore, official and private texts on e-voting are available in English: on the one hand, summaries of the reports of sub-working groups of the working group on e-voting by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 2004 - summary/international, summary/technical - (for full texts in German see E-Voting and the report in German, international annex, legal annex, technical annex)
On the other hand, a selection of further links as well as papers and presentations on e-voting in English from Austrian and European sources is offered here:
- Council of Europe activities including recommendation on e-voting
- Private Austrian e-voting tests
- 'e-voting, security aspects' by Herbert Leitold, 1st Vienna Election Seminar, December 2003
- 'Electronic Signatures', by Herbert Leitold, ibid
- 'Internet Voting' at WU Vienna, by Alexander Prosser, ibid
- 'The Dimensions of Electronic Voting - Technology, Law, Politics and Society', by Alexander Prosser, Workshop on Electronic Voting in Europe: Technology, Law and Politics, 7-9 July 2004, Hofen Castle, Lake Constance, Austria, in: Robert Krimmer, in: in: Alexander Prosser, Robert Krimmer (eds.), Electronic Voting in Europe - Technology, Law, Politics and Society, Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), vol. P-47, Gesellschaft für Informatik, Bonn 2004, pp. 21-28
- 'E-Voting. International Developments and Lessons Learnt', by T.M.Buchsbaum, Workshop, supra, pp. 31-42
- 'Security Assets in E-Voting', by Alexander Prosser, Robert Kofler, Robert Krimmer, Martin Karl Unger, Workshop, supra, pp. 171-180
- 'E-Voting in Austria - Legal Requirements and First Steps', by Patricia Heindl, Workshop, supra, pp. 165-170
- 'Is E-Voting Relevant for the OSCE', by Thomas M. Buchsbaum, Yearbook on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Volume 10 - 2004, Nomos, Hamburg 2005, pp. 489-503
- 'Developments on e-voting in Austria', by T M Buchsbaum, 2nd Vienna Election Seminar, December 2004
- 'E-voting in Austria', overview of technical aspects, by Herbert Leitold, ibid
- 'Election test at WU parallel to the Presidential Election 2004', by Alexander Prosser, ibid
- 'E-Voting: Lessons Learnt from recent pilots', by T.M.Buchsbaum, International Conference on Electronic Voting and Electronic Democracy: Present and the Future Europe, 17 and 18 March 2005, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- 'Questions and challenges of e-voting, and attempts to find answers and solutions', by T M Buchsbaum, OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Challenges on Election Technologies and Procedures, 21 April 2005, Vienna, OSCE doc. no. PC.SHDM.DEL/1/05´
- From 1 to 3 August 2006, a 2nd International Workshop on Electronic Voting was held at Castle Hofen (Vorarlberg, Austria) under the auspices of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, by the Austrian research team e-voting.cc
E-Voting forms part of E-Democracy, on which the Council of Europe started work in late 2006 by establishing a Council of Europe Working Group on E-Democracy.
Last update: October 2011
