| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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SİPPORT, is considered as a first with its characteristics of being developed for providing information to political parties in electronic environment which purified from bureaucratic processes, in very short time. Following the completion of casting of votes and the results of ballot-boxes entered to SEÇSİS, result minutes, counting and tabulating tally sheets and combination minutes scanned from 1161 districts are sent to headquarters of political parties in a very short period such as approximately 3 hours. Thus, elections are completed under the principles of transparency, accountability and controllability principles.
Another innovative approach that enhances the success of this initiative is, parties having a significant electoral data in their own headquarters. This situation also cause the decrease the numbers of objections raised against election results. Furthermore, parties informing their own electorates, increased public trust towards elections.
Along with this, parties, which dynamically participate to process, are able to continuously make demands for the improvement of initiative. Amendments in application do not cause any additional costs in the informatics infrastructures of parties.
The most important lesson SEC has taken from this initiative, is that, sometimes success can be achieved with simple and cheap solutions without the necessity of huge investments.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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This program is being executed by Directorate General of Electoral Register (DGER) operating in Ankara within the framework of Supreme Election Council.
DGER has a large database consisting of data related with electoral works of 81 provincials and 1080 district election boards (DBEs). With election results coming from DBEs, thanks to coordination of DGER with below mentioned public institutions and offices, the most updated and accurate data is being obtained and these data with different format are combined in a single database and thus this large data is presented to the service of parties:
1.Address Registry System and Identity Sharing System of General Directorate of Civil Registration and Nationality for continuously updating of electoral register and obtaining information on voters over the age of 18.
2.Directorate General of Judicial Records and Statistics for determination of those who are not allowed to be candidate in elections.
3.The Ministry of Family and Social Policies Disabled and Elderly Services General Directorate for determination of voters with visual or orthopedic disability.
4.Ministry of National Defense for determination of voters under military service and military students.
5.Court of Cassation Prosecutor's Office for the information of political parties' organizations in 81 provincials.
6.Ministry of Justice for determination of individuals who have restriction orders by the courts according to related jurisdiction and individuals who are in penal institutions and those who are convicted with inattentive offenses and whose sentences have been finalized.
This initiative has been designed by DGER in order to serve for headquarters of all political parties, which are considered eligible to participate to elections. This initiative of which target group is political parties, is in fact closely related with 58 millions of voters both living inside the country and overseas, public and media as well.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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At the first stage, SEC overviewed its own sources and determined the necessary needs, and developed its hardware, software and BT infrastructure for maintaining delivery of service properly. Decision was made on delivering SİPPORT service via internet in order to provide easy access for parties.
Along with design and infrastructure works, for every election period, a circular is being published in which main methods and principles are determined, and sent to headquarters of parties eligible to attend elections.
Expert teams of institution made meetings with informatics experts of parties and exposed their work flow and requirements. Within this framework, considering each party would prefer to access to this application, a software has been designed in line with principles of safety and confidentiality and necessary network infrastructure has been prepared.
Network infrastructure of the initiative was established at internet layer of the institution and in safe architecture. The application which gives service via a special line which can only be accessed by party users, is closed to unauthorized access. With special measures taken against cyber safety threats, the sustainability of access is being achieved.
After the institution personnel tested the application, testing environment was opened to access of parties on 12th March 2015. Following the completion of testing transactions and the correction of deficiencies, the application has started to serve parties. The first evaluation meeting was held on 29th May 2015 with technical staff of parties on how the information and documents related to the 25th Term Parliamentary General Elections would be delivered to headquarters of parties via SİPPORT, and what kind of network infrastructure they would have to access to application.
In the meeting, criteria determined by SEC for parties on the issue of accessing to SİPPORT were announced and parties were asked to meet below mentioned criteria:
•To make ready their own informatics infrastructure, to take necessary safety measures and parties have to provide minimum internet speed declared by SEC.
•Each party, which intend to access application has to inform DGER about the information of its headquarters and of the number of end computers that will be determined by YSK, to be used in this center. Up to today, totally 23 parties applied for using this service.
•Headquarters of parties may determine 10 users for using SSPS, and one user for each of Web Service and FTP services. Each of these users are also considered as users responsible of communication in case of a technical problem prior or on election date. Up to now, approximately 100 users reported by the parties have been registered on the system.
•The list of users that will access application online, is notified by Users Request Form prepared by DGER. Parties have to fill these forms and they should be delivered to DGER after sealed and signed. Parties and their users are held responsible for the safety of user name and passwords that were randomly composed, delivered to them in return of signature in a special envelope.
•SEC records and monitors all processes in access to application.
Thanks to the documents published on SİPPORT, the parties are continuously informed about each module and operation. Furthermore, with e-mail groups composed of party users and authorized personnel of the Institution, parties are also informed about the issues of electoral process and innovations of application.
Since Institution’s current infrastructure has been used in the preparation process of hardware, network and safety infrastructure, an extra cost has not emerged. The approximate cost of the project, including both software development process and scanners (number of 823) used by DEBs, is about 577.000 US Dollars.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Those who participated to analysis, design and implementation of project are:
HAVELSAN A.Ş: The Company was established in 1982 with the purpose of meeting the software engineering needs of Turkish Military Forces and has software solutions and products based on advanced technology in the field of Defense, Security and Informatics and a pioneer system integrator company both in domestic and international arena. Havelsan worked together with the personnel of Institution in composing network and security infrastructure of SİPPORT project. Havelsan also developed Election Informatics System (SEÇSİS), which is one of the most important e-government projects of Turkey.
Siren Informatics: The Company was established in 2010 and specialized on informatics technologies sector, industrial automation systems with Oracle Web Center solution partnership, with staff especially expert on web and mobile applications, co-worked with institution personnel during software development process.
Political Parties: Representatives and political experts of political parties that are active throughout Turkey, have participated development, testing and implementation processes of project with their suggestions and opinions. Since the application is open to the access of political parties, parties may compose dynamic demands over the project whenever they consider necessary. In addition, the proposals of the political parties for the development of the project is also immediately assessed and the project is continuously improved.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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•SİPPORT initiative was resulted in sharing all information and documents to the political parties with necessary ICT tools, especially including election results and electoral registers. Elections are at the heart of democracy, when conducted with integrity of all political parties, enhancing the confidence of public to the elections. Since this initiative promote higher the rate of transparency, controllability and auditability in elections of Turkey, objections related with election results and other transactions decreased from 2011 to date.
•All kinds of information and documents related to the election are regularly and transparently recorded by political parties. Political parties are allowed to compose demand electronically over SİPPORT, not only electoral registers and election results but also other information and documents, which have great importance related to the elections, such as; temporary/final candidate lists, information about the numbers of province-district- mukhtar ballot-box and voters, domestic and overseas ballot-box voter lists, ballot-box committees of the customs gates and domestic and overseas.
•Ballot-box result minutes (including result correction minutes) which have been scanned by district election boards and accessed by headquarters of political parties, are being stored with versioning method and thus, political parties may instantly monitor any changes in results.
•In analyzing the success of the project, it can be said that the overall objective was realized not only in terms of accessing the data electronically, but in terms of also storing these big data in local system of the political parties. The political parties have had a big data on the elections held between 2011 and 2015. For instance, only information related with 2015 last parliamentary general elections is evaluated, political parties had the possibility of accessing and recording the following data:
Totally, 56.949.009 voters’ data, registered both in domestic and overseas,
Data on 175.006 ballot-boxes, which have been established in domestic 50.070 locations,
Data on 425 ballot-boxes which have been established in overseas 113 diplomatic missions,
Data of 1.087.773 ballot-box committee officials assigned in domestically,
Data of 7.681 ballot-box committee officials assigned overseas ballot-boxes,
Total of 781.971 scanned ballot-box result minutes with original signature, counting and tabulating sheets, and combination minutes.
As it is seen, even in recent parliamentary elections, political parties had the opportunity to access and record data on votes of 47.840.231 voters, and their distribution among political parties throughout Turkey in a short time of approximately 3 hours.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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During the development of this project, the most significant problem encountered were the differences in informatics infrastructures of the political parties. Considering the problems they face with their service suppliers, different technologies they use while purchasing internet service, the connection problems, specifications of the computers they use, the Institution considered the access of political parties from all kinds of platforms without the need of further investment as the main priority. Problems political parties face with, were tried to be eliminated with the support of personnel of the Institution. In case any problems occur on the subject of accessing data, preparations were made to provide such data in magnetic environment.
Since the project is continuously developed, political parties continuously develop their informatics infrastructure in line with the informatics infrastructure of SEC, personnel using the application is composed of individuals with advanced informatics knowledge. Thus, all problems subject to access are solved separately.
Some political parties are unable to provide informatics infrastructure necessary for accessing to application. Requested information and documents are given in magnetic environment to these parties in case of written request.
Related election boards were informed about use of scanners to be used by district election boards during undertaking of realizing the project, and technical problems during scanning of minutes were eliminated by data processing personnel. Basic manuals were prepared about training of personnel in district election boards. Besides, call centers provide continuous support to users.
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