ally challenging elections carried out with professionalism

Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 17 April 2011. Tieto was once again involved in the conducting the elections. The technically challenging elections were carried out with professionalism thanks to the smooth co-operation and solid skills of the operators.

The Ministry of Justice carries the official responsibility for the implementation of the parliamentary election. The operational tasks of the parliamentary elections’ information systems are the responsibility of the ICT Service Centre for the Judicial Administration (OTTK), Population Register Centre (VRK) and Tieto. Additionally, application and service providers from the private sector were involved in the election.
 
The parliamentary elections were a challenging endeavour because the renewed information system was used as a more extended version than before. Three different application providers have produced the system components. Tieto is responsible for the integration of the components, and in the elections it was also responsible for the technical production environment, support services and investigation of technical problems.
 
“Managing the parliamentary elections as a whole was more challenging this time because of the involvement of new operators and their new roles. However, the whole operation was managed successfully and the elections were conducted flawlessly,” says Arto Jääskeläinen, Director of Electoral Administration at the Ministry of Justice.
 
The new election information system has four main components: the basic information system, the candidate and voting information system and the counting system. The system has been renewed in sections: the basic information and candidate nomination sections had been implemented earlier but the voting information system was used for the first time in these elections.
 
“The renewed voting register worked faultlessly in the advance voting. It received positive feedback from the users,” says Jääskeläinen.


 
Tieto involved in developing the election information system of the future

The elections are a huge effort both in terms of the workload and financially. This year, voting took place in 15 constituencies as well as in 900 advance voting and 2361 election day polling stations. The number of votes cast at the elections totalled 2,954,219 of which slightly less than a half were advance votes.
 
“The most important stages of the elections were the advance voting, where approximately 1.35 million votes were cast, and the election day itself. Voting was preceded by a long preparation stage during which we tested and compiled the election information system. We verified the validity of the system by a technical trial run of the elections in September 2010, as it is the only way to ensure the operation of the system in the actual elections,” says Olli Pitkänen, who was the project manager responsible for the elections at Tieto.
 
“The transfer to the new operational model shared by several different operators was in many respects a challenging task. The ICT Service Centre for the Judicial Administration assumed the overall responsibility for operating services and the end-customer support and succeeded in it excellently. We managed all our responsibilities well,” says Pitkänen.
 
Tieto will also be involved in next year’s presidential and municipal elections.
 
“The next step in the development of the election information system is the improvement of the existing result counting system in 2012. Additionally, the result information service will be developed in accordance with the changed communication requirements, and the electronic electoral register will become more widely used in the near future. IT will also retain its very significant role in election arrangements,” says Jääskeläinen from the Ministry of Justice