Election Markup Language (EML)
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Current Status | Published but very limited adoption |
| Version Number | v7.0 |
| Key Contacts | John Borras, Individual [email protected] |
| Implementing Agencies | Election commissions, e-voting companies |
| Documentation | http://docs.oasis-open.org/election/eml/v7.0/eml-v7.0.html |
| Founding/Sponsoring Organizations | OASIS |
Background
The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) created the Voter Services Technical Committee in 2001 to develop XML standards for election and voter services information. To establish the specifics of the XML schemas, the committee also developed a generic election process model based on the work by election.com’s CTO.
Analysis
Election Markup Language is designed to be multinational, so that it could be adopted globally. However, it has had little in the way of adoption in the United States. The vast diversity in the types of democratic systems globally may be a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of this system. The EML standard could be more widely adopted if e-voting, or internet voting, took off in a more substantial way.Since the EML standard covers the end-to-end process of voting, it could streamline and simplify the process of setting up such a system. The United Kingdom experimented with using the EML standard for an e-voting pilot and Belgium currently uses EML in its local government elections.