A WEB

“We have gained so much from this training, and I am very grateful for the Korean experts who have traveled far away to give us technical advice. I think that the best way we can make a return for the A-WEB's favor is to continuously utilize what we have gained from this project and also use it for the 2021 election successfully."

- Henry Mailo, IT Director of OEC of Samoa-

The Association of World Election Bodies, hereinafter A-WEB, has concluded a phase of the 『2019 Capacity Building Program on Operations of Election ICT for the OEC, Samoa』, which have been conducted for the development of the election process with the Office of the Electoral Commission (OEC) of Samoa since the year 2017. The Capacity Building Program on Operations of Election ICT, held in August, is the continuous effort of the A-WEB and Samoa OEC's follow-up ODA project that aims to support the stable management and operation of data centers and election information systems established through ODA projects.

This program has been a two-weeks course; divided into two fields, such as data center operation and election information system operation, for IT personnel in Samoa OEC. The program was composed of theoretical and practical courses, which was conducted in various fields such as a) vulnerability diagnosis and its countermeasures b) networking education c) security system and system operation and d) database operation education.

▲ A Commemorative Photo of A-WEB and Samoan OEC Staff members 

The main purpose of Data Center Operations training was to increase the capacity of operators to continuously operate the data center built through the ODA project conducted by Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB) and Office of the Electoral Commission (OEC) of Samoa. Therefore, based on the existing data center blueprints, the participants tried to understand the characteristics of the internal and external servers and the flow of the network. Using the allotted time, during the practical course, participants practiced setting up firewall and vulnerable countermeasures.

As the practical course was conducted as one-on-one entirely between A-WEB and the trainees, it was adapted to each trainee to enhance the completion of the training program.

▲ Experts from Samoa OEC, participating in the hands-on training 

Another key aspect of data center operations training has been a backup system operation training, When an inevitable problem occurs with the server or the installed equipment, it can provide voters relevant services without causing the loss of previously collected information of voters with no delays. Therefore, the A-WEB Project Department has trained participants to fully understand the design of the backup system, to supplement existing vulnerabilities to equip for natural disasters or external hacking attacks, and to practice building security system and replacing existing equipment. The program focused on improving self-operation skills without any assistance.

The primary purpose of the Election Information System (EIS) Management training in the second week was to secure application development and operation capability so that the IT personnel of Samoa OEC can manage upcoming elections through various election information systems.

The EIS developed for the Samoa OEC provides a service that avoters to check and correct their information at all times and during the election period. It was developed to conduct a) election announcement b) candidate management c) voter management d) counting results and e) confirming final election and public announcement.

In particular, the EIS consists of an election management system for managing election procedures and election statistics system for real-time election information for the voters. This is the system that can guarantee transparency in election management and free participation of the voters in voting, which has emerged as a major factor in the success of the Samoa ODA Election Capacity Building Project.

▲ The trainees installing SVN servers on computers

The program also entailed the training on the development tool installation for application maintenance, development server installation for development and testing, and SVN server installation and operation training for election information system source configuration management. Especially, participants created mock elections to a) modify voter information b) register elections c) register each constituency and its electorate d) register candidates e) register and publish election preliminary results f) publish the final results of elections. By rehearsing the entire process in elections by themselves, they gained a set of skills which helps to fully utilize the built applications.