Evaluating the suitability of EML 4.0 for the Norwegian Electoral System : A prototype approach

Abstract

The Election Markup Language (EML) is a communication language used between and within different subsystems of a computerized electoral information system. EML is defined by means of a set of 33 XML Schemas.

This thesis tests the hypothesis that the EML communication language is suitable for a computerized Norwegian Electoral System. The testing is performed using a prototype implementation in Java. Though the implementation does not take into consideration security and anonymity concerns, it is a full implementation of the Electoral System. The prototype system consists of five subsystems that communicate using a network connection. The implementation spans 10115 lines of code and 58 classes.

EML is found to be very close to a communication language suitable for the Norwegian Electoral System, though a few changes would have to be made to the standard to express the information exchange required by law. The shortcomings in EML are countered with proposed changes in the standard, and in addition a some parts of the Norwegian Election Law and Election regulations are proposed changed.