Experiences gained from the first Prêt à Voter implementation

Abstract

Implementing an electronic voting system for the first time can be difficult, since requirements are sometimes hard to specify and keep changing, resources are scarce in an academic setting, the gap between theory and practice is wider than anticipated, adhering to a formal development lifecycle is inconvenient and delivery on time is very hard. This paper describes all of the work done by the Prêt à Voter team in the run-up to VoComp in 2007 and enumerates a number of lessons learned.