The Department of Agriculture has published in the DOGC the order by which the agrarian elections of 2021 are called. They will be on March 25 and 26 and the voting process will be done exclusively through electronic voting and a universal census, being the first electoral process in Catalonia to be developed exclusively for digital channels. Approximately 20.500 voters will participate.
It is the first time that these elections will be held by electronic voting and it has been agreed with the professional agrarian organizations to be represented in the Agrarian Table. On March 25, voters will be able to vote remotely by electronic means and by electronic means in person at 209 monitoring points distributed throughout the country. March 26 will be the second and last day of voting by electronic means in person at 67 monitoring points.
The objective is to guarantee the effectiveness of the right to vote, facilitate participation and minimize risks in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The monitoring points for electronic voting have been distributed throughout Catalonia according to the number of voters in each region and are located at the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food, in town halls and at the ICT points managed by the Service of Inclusion and Digital Training of the Department of Digital Policies and Public Administration.
The electronic voting system
The points for the electronic voting in person have been established by applying a criterion of distance between the domicile of the voter and the point of accompaniment to the voting, trying not to have more travel time than necessary. At all these points, the necessary Covid-19 measures and protocols will be applied, and they will be assisted by a person authorized as a representative of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food. Here you can find the map with the follow-up points to the electronic voting attached at the end of the note.
The specialized company MINSAIT, the technological manager of electoral processes throughout the world, will be in charge of the electronic voting system, which is made up of the universal census, an electronic ballot box and the electronic voting technology platform. These first elections with electronic voting include an innovative one-time password system for the authentication of the voter.
We have had the advice of the Director of Innovation and Data of the CTTI, Lluís Anaya, the general director of Citizen Participation, Ismael Peña-López, the general director of Citizen Attention, Jordi Graells, and the specialist in electoral processes and member of the Observatory of the Electronic Voting, Josep Maria Reniu, who is also a tenured professor at the University of Political Science and Administration (UB). In addition, the Catalan Cybersecurity Agency is in charge of ensuring the computer security of the application, the infrastructure and the communications used in the electoral process.
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