The re-engineered module “Preliminary Registration” and the newly developed module “Documentation” of the State Automation Information System “Elections” (SAISE) took place online on 19 October 2020. The meeting was attended by the members of the Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Moldova (CEC) and the Centre of Continuous Electoral Training.

One of the benefits of the updated module “Preliminary Registration” is its reliability, now system crashes due to a great number of simultaneous users are excluded and, therefore, accusations that the CEC does not ensure citizens’ right to register and vote are also avoided.

Citizens of the Republic of Moldova residing abroad have already benefited from the new module and were able to register themselves to vote in the upcoming 1 November 2020 Presidential elections due to the fact that both modules of the SAISE were put to use in the ongoing Presidential campaign and dedicated staff from the CEC were trained on how to use both modules.

Regarding the newly developed module “Documentation”, it simplifies and unifies the different types of electoral documents and it strengthens the precision of acts and materials delivered towards lower-level electoral management bodies and those returned to the CEC.

According to Mr. Alexandru Berlinschi, Head of the Electoral Management Department of the CEC, if previously these activities were for the most part being processed manually taking around 50-60 working hours, now due to the implementation of the new module the same workload is covered by 1 electoral civil servant within 10 minutes.

The Council of Europe developers will guide the CEC staff by the end of October 2020 to make sure both modules are operating without shortcomings within the rest of the modules/applications of the SAISE.

The activity is funded and implemented by the Council of Europe within the on-going project “Improving electoral practice in the Republic of Moldova”.