Electronic Voting Experiment in the 2001 Local Elections

The second experimental piloting of electronic voting in political elections in Portugal was carried out on 16 December 2001 during the 2001 Local Elections and was organised by the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Procedures - STAPE. It took place in the wards of Sobral de Monte Agraço (Sobral de Monte Agraço) and Campelo (Baião), without the results counting towards the official results.

The voting machine was essentially the same as the 1st experimental piloting, carried out in 1997, with improvements which had in the meantime been made (see the image of the voting machine below). The 2004 experimental piloting of the 2004 European Elections was of a similar form. This time the software system was made available for auditing by anyone who wished to carry this procedure out.

29% of the electorate of 3,700 voters in the chosen wards participated in the experiment.

As was the case with the previous experiment, STAPE stated that it was “enthusiastically received” by the voters.

Summary of results per ward:

Ward: Sobral de Monte Agraço (Sobral de Monte Agraço)
No. of voters: 1,675
No. of electronic voters: 595

Ward: Campelo (Baião)
No. of voters: 2,083
No. of electronic voters: 479

Photograph of one of the voting machines used in the Sobral de Monte Agraço Ward: