Colleagues

It is quite some time now since our last meeting but you may remember that the main action flowing from that meeting was for me to finalise version 4 of EML and align it with the work of the Council of Europe working group on e-voting. The CoE work went on slightly longer than I had anticipated but I am pleased to say that they have now agreed a draft recommendation on e-voting for all European Member States which should be ratified at a Ministerial meeting in November. This draft Recommendation and associated Explanatory Memorandum can be found at http://www.coe.int/t/e/integrated_projects/democracy/02_Activities/02_e-voting/default.asp#TopOfPage

This is a very significant development in so far as it now positions EML as the standard to use for all countries (44 ) in Europe. The draft of Version 4 which we have prepared accommodates all the perceived requirements from these countries, including referenda, as well as lots of lessons learnt from the UK pilots last year. So I believe now we have a version that meets a very comprehensive set of requirements. I will shortly be posting this version for a vote by the TC and would urge all voting members to take the time to read the draft of v4 and the CoE recommendation and then vote accordingly. As this is a lot of new reading for most of you I will be leaving the ballot open until the end of this month.

Following the conclusion of this vote we will need to ask ourselves where we go from here. I'll convene a TC meeting to review the outcome of the vote and the way forward.

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