The city of Hamburg, Germany revised its election laws so that each voter has more than one vote, making the voting process more complicated. Tallying all of the votes would be complex and time consuming using traditional ballots, so an electronic voting system called the Digital Voting Pen System (“Digitales Wahlstift-System”, or DWS) is proposed.
The DWS was selected due to its security, verifiability, and closeness to the conventional voting procedure and therefore its acceptance among voters.
The digital pen is used like an ordinary pen but contains a microprocessor that scans the marks the user places on a special piece of paper with a specific dot pattern printed in the background. The paper booklet is collected along with the electronic vote for spot tests or, as needed, in depth verification of polling results.