2023-08-18 03:30:25
Paper voting in Wallonia and electronic voting in Brussels, choice of polling station for Brussels residents in the municipal elections: here is how voters will vote in 2024.
As 2024, the year of all elections, approaches, the choices have been made between paper and electronic voting. As in 2019, following the hiccups of electronic voting during the 2014 mega-election, the Wallonia will stick to paper votingwith the exception of the nine municipalities of the German-speaking community, which have retained electronic voting.
This choice of the paper vote was made “for financial and security reasons”, recalled the Minister of Local Authorities Christophe Collignon (PS) in the Walloon Parliament in 2022, adding that there was no question of changing it.
In Brussels, the 19 municipalities will vote electronically. And in Flanders, it’s on a case-by-case basis: 189 of the 300 municipalities have opted for electronic voting. Nothing, or almost nothing, changes compared to the 2019 elections.
“This digitization (…) saves paper, simplifies work and reduces costs.”
The choice of polling station in Brussels
However, there will be a major novelty in the Brussels Region for the municipal elections, which will take place on October 13, 2024: voters will be able to go to any polling station of their municipality. Same thing if they hold a power of attorney from a person domiciled in the same municipality. On July 20, the Brussels parliament adopted in plenary session an ordinance amending the electoral code.
The main change? L’centralized electronic registration. “This puts an end to the obligation to manually keep paper tally lists, explains the office of the Minister of Local Authorities Bernard Clerfayt (Défi). This digitization offers several advantages for the public authorities: it guarantees a more fluid circulation in the office of voting, it saves paper, simplifies work and reduces costs.”
And it also allows citizens to choose their polling station – but only for the municipal elections, the Brussels-Capital Region not being competent for the European, federal and regional elections, which will be held on June 9, 2024. .
During the 2018 municipal elections, the absenteeism rate reached 16.47% in the Brussels-Capital Region, a percentage that the Region hopes to be able to lower thanks to this new procedure.
Internet voting tests
Another likely change: Internet voting pilot experiments might take place in the next elections. At the request of the FPS Interior, a study, published in two parts at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, was carried out on the subject by a consortium of universities (ULB, VIB, KU Leuven and UCLouvain). It concluded that there were a number of difficulties – confidentiality concerns, the question of cost control, the major legislative changes to be expected, but above all the risk that malicious software might cause the computer to send a vote for candidates. that the voter would not have chosen.
The FPS Interior is studying possible scenarios for internet voting, in collaboration with the FPS Foreign Affairs.
She therefore considered it “probably unthinkable to consider using internet voting for the entire electorate for the simultaneous elections of 2024”, but proposed to carry out pilot projects, which might concern Belgians residing abroadmore than 100,000 of whom vote by mail, but also voters who are unable to travel, such as those who are hospitalized or in prison.
An example? THE ballot might be sent by internet, to simplify the procedure, then printed, completed and sent by the voter to a polling station. We might also imagine a Internet tracking of the ballot sent by post, to ensure that it has been correctly received, as is done with parcels, but anonymously. The FPS Interior is studying possible scenarios, in collaboration with the FPS Foreign Affairs, but refuses to communicate further for the moment.
Obligation or not for Europeans
Remains a question mark of size concerning the obligation to vote. There Constitutional Court annulledJuly 20, theobligation for young people aged 16 and 17 to register beforehand on the list of electors if they want to vote in the European elections, considered discriminatory.
The federal government will therefore have to decide whether to make also compulsory voting for 16 and 17 year oldsor if it makes the vote for the European elections optional for everyone. The office of Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) says it is unable to answer for the moment. “We are still evaluating the scope of this ruling.”
The summary
- The choices were made between paper voting and electronic voting. Wallonia will stick to paper, Brussels will vote electronically, and in Flanders, it will be on a case-by-case basis.
- In the Brussels Region, for the municipal elections, voters can go to any polling station in their municipality.
- Pilot Internet voting experiments might take place for Belgians residing abroad or for voters who are unable to travel.
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