1. Information Communication Technology use in Mongolian Elections
Presenter: Tamir Zorigt
System Security Engineer
General Election Commission of Mongolia

2. Outline Brief introduction about Mongolia
Reasons to use Automated Election System /AES/ in Mongolia
The system requirements for AES selection
About AES of Mongolia and its use in elections
Lessons Learned

3. Part I
Brief Introduction about Mongolia

4. Brief information about Mongolia
Area: mln. sq. km
Population million.
Political system: Parliament (76 seats)
Administration: Capital city (Ulaanbaatar)
21 aimags (province): an aimag is the first-level administrative subdivision.
340 soums (subprovince): soum is the second level administrative subdivision of Mongolia.
The capital city Ulaanbaatar is divided in 9 districts

5. Part II
Reasons to use Automated Election System in Mongolia

6. What was the reasons to use AES in Mongolia
Previously, the election organization related procedures such as voter registration, voting , vote counting was conducted almost by traditional based method (manual & paper based) which have been somehow depended on human operation.

7. What was the reasons to use AES in Mongolia
The riot broke out on July 1st which was sparked by allegations of fraud surrounding the Parliamentary election held 3 days earlier.
Consequently 5 people were killed and about more than 700 people were arrested by police.

8. Part III
The system requirements for AES selection

9. The system requirements for voter registration system
Online registered voters’ list
voter registration system based on fingerprint

10. The system requirements for voting machine
Able to conduct more than 1 elections simultaneously
Secure ballot paper
Backup Battery
Off-line environment
Offline report printing
Make copy of ballot’s image files
Result file transmission

11. How many options are introduced?
Miru Systems (South Korea)
Voter identification System
Touch-Screen Voting System
Election Systems & Software (USA)
Optical Scan Paper Ballot Systems
Dominion Voting Systems (CAN)
Image Cast Precinct (ICP)

12. Part IV
About AES of Mongolia and its use in elections

13. Parts of Automated Election System of Mongolia
Candidate registration system
Voter registration system
Election management system
Election event designer
Voting machine
Result tabulation system

14. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Election day
Post Election
Candidates’ registration
Voter’s registration
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration
Vote casting and counting
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server
Testing & Certification
Election final result posting online
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

15. Part 1 Candidate registration system
Pre Election
Its works in Virtual Private Network environment (from election district committees to central server)
District committee staff sends candidate information through web based application to our central server
After finish candidate registration, they print sample ballot paper from our CRS for proofreading purpose
At the end they send stamped and signed sample ballot paper image to GEC
Candidates’ registration

16. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Election day
Post Election
Candidates’ registration
Voter’s registration
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration
Vote casting and counting
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server
Testing & Certification
Election final result posting online
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

17. Part 3.A. Election event designer of EMS
Pre Election
It works in offline environment
It imports election related data from spreadsheet which exported from CRS
It makes design of ballot paper
It does voting machine related configuration such as
Central server IP address
Opening and closing passwords for polling station managers
Programming of magnetic key for poll worker
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration

18. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Election day
Post Election
Candidates’ registration
Voter’s registration
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration
Vote casting and counting
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server
Testing & Certification
Election final result posting online
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

19. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Technical test
Logic Accuracy test
Tests with parties and civil society organization
“Certification working group” tests
Data transmission test from each polling station
Testing & Certification

20. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Election day
Post Election
Candidates’ registration
Voter’s registration
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration
Vote casting and counting
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server
Testing & Certification
Election final result posting online
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

21. Part 2 Voter registration system
Election day
Civil Registration Office prepares voters’ list
It works in offline environment
Primary method is fingerprint based registration (system shows voter’s picture on the screen for observers)
Secondary method is national ID card based registration for emergency (system gives additional signal and shows voter’s picture on the screen for observers) +
Voter’s registration +

22. Part 2 Voter registration system+ +
Register voter by fingerprint and electronic ID card
Provide a receipt to the voter that authorizes the voter to receive a ballot
Produce and Display statistical reports
Print these reports every hour

23. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Election day
Post Election
Candidates’ registration
Voter’s registration
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration
Vote casting and counting
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server
Testing & Certification
Election final result posting online
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

24. Part 3b voting machine Election day Vote casting and counting
It works in offline environment
It has 2 different password for opening and closing of polling (polling station manager keeps it)
It has magnetic key (poll worker keeps it)
It has 2 memory card which sealed from working group of certification ( it saves ballot paper image file, vote count, system log and configuration)
It encrypts special data before save on cards
Every voting machine has unique ballot paper
It has preconfigured modem for result file transmission purpose which connects only to the protected network
Vote casting and counting
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server

25. Part 3b voting machine
RESULT report
ZERO report

26. Part 3.B. voting machine Scan and identify ballot
Count vote and save images in memory
Consolidate voting results
Transmit voting result to central server

27. Transmission of voting result
Only ONE central server
State total precincts 1896
Data transmitted by 5 different GSM, CDMA and Satellite network
According to the Article 100 of the LoE:
A polling station shall read and announce polling results of the election precinct processed by vote counting equipment and the senior coordinator of the polling station shall sign the polling results sheet printed by the vote counting equipment, and a copy of that shall be delivered to the election committee of the soum, district, and the election committee of the soum, district shall deliver it to election committee of the aimag, capital city, and the election committee of the aimag, capital city shall deliver it to the central election authority respectively and immediately.
Polling station may give the results sheet printed by the vote counting equipment along with image data of ballot paper to a representative of a party or candidate, or each observer of non-governmental organization on the polling day.
An election committee that received polling results shall tabulate results in its territory and deliver it along with polling result sheet to its superior election committee.

28. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Election day
Post Election
Candidates’ registration
Voter’s registration
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration
Vote casting and counting
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server
Testing & Certification
Election final result posting online
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

29. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Election day
Provides copied image files to party observers.
All scanned ballots formed in image.
Bottom part of image file shows how ballot scanned on ICP
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

30. An overview of Automated Election System procedures
Pre Election
Election day
Post Election
Candidates’ registration
Voter’s registration
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Ballot paper designing, voting machine configuration
Vote casting and counting
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)
Report Printing and Result Transmission to Central Server
Testing & Certification
Election final result posting online
Ballot Image burning on CD by the request from observers

31. Part 3.C. report tabulation system
Post Election
Result tabulation and Live Screening
Manual recounting up to 50% of the polling stations
(by random selection, according
to the Election Law)

32. How many proofs left after use AES in Mongolian elections
Voter registration database on registration computer
Voter registration on paper
Ballot papers
Ballot image files (already provided to observers)
Printed result tapes (already provided to observers)
Manual recounting results of up to 50% of polling stations
Encrypted result files on central server
Tabulated result of election on central server (broadcasted live on TVs)

33. What is advantages of AES of Mongolia
Fast Results
Security
Control and Reports 
Efficient Operations

34. Difficulties faced while using AES
300 out of 1998 polling stations are resided in a destination without mobile network:
About 100 places were used satellite network which is costly because of the renting and installation fee. Moreover, the installation takes long time.
Rest of the polling stations were moved to another places where the mobile network is available
Current ballot paper is much more expensive than the traditional ones /price before 6-12 cents, current cents/
In some cases it requires reprint the ballot paper, where misspelling of the names and needs to exclude the candidate’s name from the ballot paper in relation with the violation of related law and regulation*
The destination of the each polling station in countryside is far...
The voting machine delivery always have been under the risk of damage of the equipment due to the bad road condition in the countryside
In some cases, polling staff and police officers were not able to vote due to the deployment away from their registered polling stations
During the 2016 Parliamentary election, 3 candidate’s names had to be excluded from the printed ballot papers, due to the campaign related violations.

35. Lessons Learned
Part V

36. Lessons Learned
Creation of electronic voter registration system (online, offline)
Mobile network coverage to be broadened (instead of using satellite network)
Selection of voting machine
Ballot paper based voting system (OMR and OCR)
SMS voting system
E-Voting system
Commercial or Open source
Public monitoring on the procedures of AES as open & transparent as it possible
Less manual work on voting and counting procedures
Less disputes from any stakeholders on organization of elections

37. Thank you for your attention