Research assignments
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Published under: Stoltenberg's 2nd Government
Publisher: Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development
Article | Last updated: 14/06/2012
The e-voting trial in the municipal and county council elections 2011 will be thoroughly and extensively evaluated by external research centres. The trial will be evaluated on the basis of electoral and democratic criteria, as well as on the basis of the Council of Europe's recommendation for electronic voting (Rec(2004)11). The trial will also be evaluated on the basis of technical and security criteria.
The Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development has signed contracts with two research centres, which will be looking closely into the effects of e-voting in the ten trial municipalities, on the basis of electoral and democratic criteria.
The greater part of the research will be carried out by the Institute for Social Research, working together with the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR), the Uni Rokkan Centre, the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Computing Centre. A smaller part of the assignment will be carried out by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), an American organisation with over 20 years’ experience in the election field. Between them, these research centres have a wealth of national and international electoral expertise, with specific expertise in research into local democracy, voter behaviour, electoral implementation and electronic solutions for democracy and voting.
The researchers will be looking into the significance of e-voting as regards accessibility and electoral participation, the extent to which voters have confidence in e-voting and voter's attitudes to secret voting in uncontrolled environments, among other issues. They will also be looking at the Norwegian e-voting trials in an international perspective, as well as evaluating the trials in relation to international standards for internet voting and elections in general.
The researchers will use both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Among other things, they will be carrying out questionnaire surveys in the trial municipalities, in-depth interviews with selected groups, focus groups for young people and observation studies of user-friendliness for the handicapped. Four of the e-voting municipalities are also taking part in the trials of voting for 16 and 17 year-olds. This will give the researchers a unique opportunity to look at the relationship between young people and electronic voting.
The results of the research are planned to be ready before autumn 2012.
Please find more information about the research assignments here:
- Specification of Requirements (pdf-format)
- Project description Area A1-A3 and A5 (pdf-format)
- Project description Area A4, A6 and A7 (pdf-format)
- Project description Area B (Coordination) (pdf-format)