Elections Agency Fines E-Voting Company
After the internet ballot-counting system temporarily crashed on Election Day evening, the National Electoral Committee said it will demand compensation from Helmes, the company responsible for the country's vote-counting software.
"Quality requirements [...] are listed in our contract and if there is a one-time delay of 15 minutes, then there are sanctions for every minute delayed. We need to add it up, but the total sum is around 8,500 euros," committee Chairman Heiki Sibul told uudised.err.ee.
Asked about the minuscule amount, Sibul said it took long negotiations to get Helmes to agree even to those terms.
Sibul could not say yet whether the agency would continue its relationship with Helmes, which has been commissioned by the committee on three occasions.
Helmes will present a report on its analysis of the website malfunction to the election agency within a week. "The database did not perform queries with the prescribed speed [...] Reliability had thoroughly been tested and it worked flawlessly," said company spokesperson Evelin Lang.
The committee will additionally hire independent experts to analyze the crash.
Ott Tammik
