Ease of Operation and Security

The flexibility of the SAES platform makes it possible to automate any election in accordance with the legal requirements of the governing electoral agency, the local voting customs and the socio-political factors of the host country. 

We place paramount importance on the security and integrity of the entire electoral process. That is we base our system on a series of encryption algorithms that safeguard the collection and transfer of every vote at each of the following verification points:

a) Voting receipt printed on special paper and identified with a random code to ensure the secrecy of the vote;

b) Fixed memory (internal) of every SAES machine;

c) Removable memory of every SAES machine;

d) Station tally from the voting table;

e) The electronic vote transferred to the tallying centers;

f) Electronic act transferred to the tallying centers;

g) The tallying act. 

Each of these checkpoints ensures the transparency of the electoral process and together they provide the most complete guaranty available. They offer ample opportunities to pinpoint anomalies, if they occur, and early enough, to prevent them from becoming a big problem.

A Thorough Methodology

Our proven operations methodology begins with consultancy and organization of the electoral project with our highly trained personnel and then follows the eight-step process listed below.

1 System configuration

Prior to any election, the SAES platform is evaluated thoroughly to guarantee optimal performance of all components by using internal auditing and testing of its functionality and performance levels. An exhaustive checking of the security mechanisms, the standards specified by our client and any other requirement of the particular election is conducted so that the system can be certified.

2 Configuration of voting machines

Based on information provided by the electoral agency, the SAES voter interface is customized according to whether the ballot uses graphic elements such as the colors of the political parties, images, logos, foreign languages or ideograms. In this way SAES reproduces the appearance of the ballot forms with which the electorate is already familiar.

3 Preliminary audits

After the voting machines are configured, engineering tests and code audits are conducted on the software, hardware and transmission platform. This is followed by a voting drill in which all sectors involved participate in verifying the system’s proper operation and its accuracy.

4 Voting

The secure SAES voting machines offer the flexibility that enables configuration to the unique requirements of each election. Every vote is stored randomly and encoded in the voting machine. It is transferred securely to the tallying server with a digital certificate issued solely for that election.

5 Transmission

Transmission of the votes and station tallies can be achieved through fixed line, mobile phone and satellite, depending on the location and security protocols.  SAES accomplishes the unidirectional transfer of electoral data without human operation. All transmission is conducted in accordance with the requirements of the presiding electoral body.

6 Tallying

While data is transferred from the voting machines to the tallying servers, SAES can generate partial result updates. Final tallies are available minutes after all voting machines have transmitted their data, which ensures that numeric inconsistencies or invalid votes cannot be caused by the technology.

7 Closing auditing

A vitally important capability of SAES voting machines is their immediate production of printed receipts of the choice voters have verified and cast on screen. These receipts are then inserted in the ballot box to provide the evidence for future auditing, if required. Our closing audit involves manual counting of randomly chosen samples of the paper ballots and cross referencing of these counts with the digitally transmitted station tally.

8 Withdrawal

At the end of the election day, Smartmatic undertakes the withdrawal, transport and storage of the voting machines. The data on the removable memories in the voting machines is permanently backed up on a server. Then, through an exclusive feature of SAES that is compliant with international standards and secure, the content of the fixed memories is deleted, so the machines can be used in subsequent elections.