Indra to Employ Its E-Counting Technology in the Scrutiny of Oslo Elections


o 470,000 electors were called to vote

o Indra is the only foreign company who has delivered elections in Norway and this is its fifth electoral process in the country

Indra undertook the scrutiny of the local elections and 15 district councils in Olso using its "e-counting" system. 470,000 electors were called to vote at 111 polling stations. The count developed without incidents and fast. It took 5 hours and a half to count 582,000 ballot papers.

Oslo City Council has commissioned Indra once more the management of the scrutiny. This contract represents the fifth electoral process-2005 and 2009 parliamentary elections and municipal elections in 2003 and 2009- carried out in Norway by Indra with this technology. Indra is the only foreign company who has delivered elections in Norway.

Indra's "e-counting" solution counts votes by automatically identifying the voter's intention. In the event of incidents, the ballots will be shown to the authorities to decide. Thanks to state-of-the-art technologies the system is capable of telling either marks or handwritten text from the voter's preferences.

The requirements of an automated counting solution such as "e-counting" guarantee transparence, reliability and quality of results. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy 2010, Norway tops the ranking which measures the state of democracy in 165 countries all over the world. Therefore, the employment of Indra's solution in its elections represents one of the biggest challenges in electoral modernisation. The Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.

Indra's "e-counting" includes training of the operators and the secure storage of results, calculation of the scrutiny and transmission of results.

This electronic count system using in Oslo, on September 12th, increases reliability and transparence of the vote count since it reduces human error. It employs high-speed scanners equipped to processes 120 ballot papers per minute and combines different automatic recognition technologies for forms, marks, barcodes and printed characters.

The technology multinational also undertook the design, printing and distribution of 5 million ballot papers, logistics processes, the electronic census system for the anticipated vote points distributed across the city and the system and definition of procedures for the opening of the anticipated vote polls in addition to the elaboration of the post-electoral analysis.

Leadership in electoral processes

Indra's experience comprises participation in more than 300 successful electoral processes worldwide involving more than 2.000 million voters and has been pioneer in the use of new technologies with solutions such as: PDA's, Electronic Vote, e-Counting, Internet Voting, CAE or solutions and services for citizen participation like the iPARTICIPA platform.

For the last years Indra has delivered elections in countries such as: UK, Norway, France, Slovenia, Portugal, Italy, USA, Argentina and Angola, among others offering all sorts of services and electoral solutions besides implementing innovative electronic vote systems. Moreover, the company gave thorough support to the recent elections to the parliaments of Catalonia and Galicia; Andalusia's regional elections; European Parliament, legislative elections in Argentina and presidential elections in Colombia. Once more, it was also awarded the scrutiny and communication of results of the municipal elections in Spain on May 22nd.

Indra is the premier Information Technology company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe and Latin America. It is ranked as the second European company in its sector according to investment in R&D with nearly Euros 500 M during the last three years. In 2010 revenues reached Euros 2,557 M of which a 40% came from the international market. The company employs more than 31,000 professionals and has clients in more than 110 countries.

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