RE: [election-services] EML in the local elections

["Terryn, Johan" <johan.terryn@eds.com>]

All,

 

EML established the baseline from early on in the project and was defined to be the interface of choice between all systems. This gave us a head start, we did not have to invent interfaces, only define how we were going to use them as concrete examples.

 

We discovered early on that the EML definition did not fit to non-Anglo-Saxon elections :-) so we had to include some extensions which we hoped would make it in to the standards.

 

The publication of the RSS feed are EML documents 520 with a style sheet applied. You can easily see the extensions (lvk namespace).

 

We only had use for EML 230, EMl510 and EML520. Voter registration is not applicable to Belgium since voting is compulsory. 

 

We did use EML as distinct steps in the process, but also for the evolution of the incoming results, something that EML was not designed for.

The process worked flawless and results have never been collected as fast.

As you might have noticed we had online statistics about participation, M/F details about the elected as well as age categories.

 

Results were published as a sum of all counting stations for which results were received, and every time seat allocation was calculated (EML520 intermediate).

 

I am hoping to get details published ...

 

 

Johan

 

 

Johan

 

This is excellent news, very well done to all involved.  Are you content for me to post this news on the TC website please?

 

Are there any lessons learnt from your exercise that we could include in the draft Busienss Case for EML that I produced some weeks ago?  I'd like to get that document published and it would be be greatly enhanced if it had your case study included.
 

Regards
John
M. +44 (0)7976 157745

---

From: Paul Spencer [mailto:paul.spencer@boynings.co.uk]
Sent: dinsdag 10 oktober 2006 10:03
To: Terryn, Johan; John Borras; EML TC
Subject: RE: [election-services] EML in the local elections

Johan,

 

That is a great site! Far better than anything I have seen in the UK. How much did the EML help on the results side? Would anyone have created anything so good if you had used traditional methods?

 

Regards

 

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Terryn, Johan [mailto:johan.terryn@eds.com]
Sent: 09 October 2006 20:03
To: John Borras; EML TC
Subject: [election-services] EML in the local elections

All,

 

yesterday we had local elections in Flanders.

We used the EML specifications wherever we could, although we had to make some modifications to fit the local requirements.

 

The use of EML simplified interactions between systems but complicated the work for developers not familiar with XML processing. It was a challenge but EML never let us down.

 

You can see the use of the EML at http://vlaanderenkiest.be. The RSS feed might be of interest, it rarely gives an update but all documents are (almost completely) EML document.

 

We have made our own set of XML documents to provide us with aggregations and overviews. These are used in the applets: status, participation and M/F relations are all based in this. The whole site used to refresh, but since all documents are almost final not many update will be seen.

 

 

Thanks for being able to use this EML specification in a real situation.

 

 

Best regards,

Johan terryn

Systems Architect, Emea Architects Office

EDS

Noorderlaan 147

Atlantic House

B 2030 Antwerpen, Belgium

 

( Phone:+32 473 86 35 30

+ mailto:Johan.terryn@eds.com