Electronic voting systems for the European Parliament

The Electronic Voting Systems installed by Olivetti for the European Parliament in 1980 were built with a network of microprocessor controlled voting terminals connected by a custom designed local area network to an Olivetti P6060 minicomputer.

The 420 terminals included an Intel 4748 single chip microprocessor controlling the punched card reader, the voting keys and the display lights, in addition to the serial interface to the LAN. The transmission was over a 19200 baud RS422 telephone cable using a polling-selecting software protocol controlled by the minicomputer.

An "Intelligent Communication Controller" with an Intel 8080 microprocessor was installed between the Olivetti P6060 and the network of the terminals to achieve the full speed of communication.

In the first system installed in Strasbourg, France, used only once for a minor vote, the polling of the terminals had been controlled by the P6060 with an interpreted Basic software with response time so long to force Simone Veil, the Parliament President, to apologize to parliament saying that "la machine doit chauffer" - the machine must warm up.[1]

After the first system was installed in Strasbourg it was determined that the interpreted basic software used by the P6060 was limiting the polling speed from the network. An intelligent unit was therefore installed to perform the polling selecting functions using an Intel 8080 microprocessor controlled micro programmed for the specific function. This unit was first installed in the second system of Luxembourg, where it was used for the first time for the voting of the Budget, with over 500 nominal votes were performed in just 4 hours - It would have taken about two hours for each of the 500 votes using the traditional manual procedures.[2]. The Strasbourg system was then updated with a similar intelligent unit. The P6060 was later replaced with one of the newest Olivetti personal computers.

The terminals, the local area network and the intelligent polling unit were designed and manufactured by a subcontractor of Olivetti: Elema Spa, were Enrico Massetti [3] was the general manager and the main designer.

Elema Spa installed also, always as a subcontractor of Olivetti, an identical electronic voting system in the Italian Senato della Repubblica.

The voting systems for the European Parliament and the Italian Senate were later updated and expanded by the Eurel Informatica Spa[4] company that was founded by Enzo Costa, the former Olivetti engineer who was in charge of the original project for Olivetti when the company decided to exit the business of electronic voting systems in 1987.

The first time the system was used in Luxembourg it failed miserably[5] Enrico Massetti quick thinking and action saved the day for the Parliament and for Olivetti, and prevented it to become a total disaster. Enrico manually controlled the power of the voting terminals at each of the 500 votes that took place that day. Enzo Costa, the Olivetti engineer in charge of the project, had requested that the test software be incorporated with the operating firmware of the terminal, activated when a voting button was pressed at power-up. When activated, the test software was continuously transmitting a square wave on the transmission line, effectively killing all network communication. With 430 people interacting with the system someone would vote before the president declared the vote open, and the power to the terminals switched on automatically by the central computer.