10 minutes agoWhy the CEC platform failed?
Periskopi(a year ago)
(a year ago)The night the eyes and ears were at the Kosovo Central Election Commission, the online platform of this institution was out of the system for hours. The break caused confusion in the public waiting for the results of the February 9th parliamentary elections to be published, even though CEC officials assured that the manual data collection would not [...]
The break caused confusion in the public waiting for the outcome of the February 9th parliamentary elections, even though CEC officials assured that the manual data collection will have no impact on the outcome.
This is confirmed by former CEC chief Adnan Merovci, who says that despite the climate of uncertainty he caused, the problem has not affected the accuracy or reliability of the vote.
The CEC's online platform became difficult to approach very soon after the location was closed at 7: 00 p.m., though an overall data mirror managed to bring it.
She returned to work on Monday morning, but there were long - term problems.
What caused the problems?
CEC Chairman Kreshnik Radoniqi announced late Sunday that the voting counting software has failed, but made no clear the reasons.
Under these circumstances, we have considered the situation and will collect the data manually. We assure citizens that nontransmitting preliminary data via electronic platform has no impact on the outcome. After we collect, we will publish”, Radonick said.
Radio Free Europe asked the CEC for the reasons of the platform's failure and whether it has tested it in advance, but received no answers.
In early hours of Monday morning, the problem has been overcome. Media and citizens can refer to preliminary results emerging on the electronic platform”, said the received response.
What did the company that developed software say?
The CACTTUS company, which developed the software app for the CEC's Counting and Results Centre, said through a statement to the media that the core function of this app, for recording data introduced by polling stations, worked as it was designed until 7:00 p.m. So until the end of the voting process.
According to this company, the problem was born from “the unprecedented loss of traffic” on the web site.
“Pass has analysed the problem and identified the root cause, defined that the application's (configured) values Cloudflake they were not optimized to handle the extreme load. Working together, app Cloudflake properly certified, to respond to requests, which later restored the system's full functionality”, says in the Media Declaration of the Kosovo company, which offers services in the field of information technology and telecommunications.
Bleton Abazi, cyber security expert in Kosovo, states that the reason for the failure of this platform are large loads in it and insufficient software capacity.
According to him, the platform had to be tested in advance, so that the technical problem did not appear at the most important moment during the publication of preliminary results”.
Because, it's that point, when everyone wants to get services and information, and the system gets blocked or the fights. So, then, it comes up to the return of the negative response or the failure to access the system”, Abazi tells Radio Free Europe.
Radoniqi announced the block after 11:00, or about 4 hours after the location closed.
Soon after 7:00, however, access to this system has been associated with obstacles until it has become completely impossible.
Merovci says the CEC's mistake has been the public's immediate non-information of technical problems.
The “has had to accept that reality, because the role of the CEC, following the closure of polling stations, is to announce the opinion as soon as possible and more precisely”, Merovci tells Radio Free Europe.
But despite the problems, he expresses the belief that “equity and voter secrecy have not been jeopardised”.
Their defence, the exact count, respectively, has been requested by Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, shortly after the announcement of software failure.
She has said she is in contact with all relevant institutions to ensure that the entire election process “is developed in line with the highest democratic standards and in line with civic will”.
How can such problems be avoided?
Similar problems, the CEC also had during earlier election processes, though shorter in length.
Ahaz says the latest incident could serve the CEC as an important lesson for the future.
According to him, the CEC has data on how many demands they've been in the system, by the time it dropped, and on them it can increase software capacity.
That way, then, they will be able to process hundreds of thousands of requests”, Abazi says.
Contacted by Radio Free Europe, the State Prosecutor said he has not issued orders for launching any eventual investigation against the Central Election Commission, which is a permanent independent body following problems with the platform.
On the day of the moon, The CEC continued to update results from the February 9th elections. By afternoon hours, over 95 percent of the votes have been counted, and according to them, the Vetevendosje Movement has come out first with about 41 percent of the vote, followed by the Democratic Party of Kosovo with about 22 percent, the Democratic League of Kosovo with about 17 percent, and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo initiative by about 7 percent.
