Today, October 20, the Central Electoral Commission, with the support of the Council of Europe Office in Chisinau, held a roundtable discussion on "Alternative voting methods: good practices for the Republic of Moldova". The purpose of the event was to discuss international practices, based on the experience of other states, but also on Council of Europe standards on alternative voting methods, especially those for electronic voting.
At the beginning of the event, the President of the Central Electoral Commission, Angelica Caraman, stressed that the need to debate this issue resulted from the priorities established by the new composition of the Commission, but also from the experience of the last national elections, including being dictated by COVID-19. Examining good practices in piloting and implementing alternative voting methods can generate a clearer and more objective understanding of all stages of this process, but also in identifying challenges and risks in their implementation in our country. The President of the CEC expressed her confidence that today's talks are a good start for achieving this goal, ambitious but extremely necessary for the whole society, which will strengthen the accessibility of the electoral system but will also generate benefits for all citizens of the Republic of Moldova with the right to vote, with no regard to where they are.
The Deputy Prime Minister for Digitization, Iurie Țurcanu, also came with a greeting message, noting the opening of the Government for the analysis and implementation of alternative voting methods. As the Republic of Moldova meets all the fundamental preconditions for the implementation, in the future, of online voting, there is a need for a consensus between the authorities, but also for combining the efforts of all actors for the whole society to accept and confidently use the alternative method or methods of vote proposed by the authorities.
One of the objectives assumed by the Central Electoral Commission, according to the Strategic Plan of the institution for the years 2020-2023, is the development of the "Internet Voting" system. The topic of the opportunity to test and implement alternative voting methods will be discussed next week at the Post-Electoral Review Conference organized by the CEC in collaboration with the Council of Europe.