Statement of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan

 

Statement of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan

(on the misunderstanding during the testing of the software prepared for the access to the information on the official website of the Central Election Commission by smartphone-type devices)

The module and provision of the software that ensures obtaining and following all the election-related information by smartphone-type devices has been implemented upon the order of the Central Election Commission by "Happy Baku” LLC which is specialized in this field. The software also includes "online” observation and live broadcast of the voting process in the polling stations through web cameras, voters’ turnout and opportunity of the access to preliminary voting results. Special requirements were put forth for the company to open the foregoing services for usage only on Election Day.

Afterwards it became clear that the developer company held interim tests on one election constituency (Hajigabul-Kurdamir Con.EC # 58) for a certain period of time on October 8, 2013 and did not inform the users on the testing of the software. As approved by "Apple” company, the software included the names of real candidates participating in the Presidential elections appointed to October 9, 2013, as well as, statistic data on previous elections and different surveys held during these Presidential elections for ensuring the success of the test. Despite the website was stopped for usage after ending the testing, this event was misunderstood by users.

Specially noting that the information located on the software during that time did not concern these elections and this was only the information used for testing the system, the Central Election Commission expresses its great regret for all the happened and apologize to all the participants of the election process for the emerged misunderstanding.