Key Benefits:
Publics concerned: veterinarians exercising medical and animal surgery.
Subject: voting procedures for the elections of the regional councils and the Higher Council for the Order of Veterinarians.
Entry into force: the text comes into force on the day after its publication.
Notice: the decree sets the rules for the election of the regional councils and the Higher Council for the Order of Veterinarians. It provides that the vote takes place electronically via the internet and determines the terms and conditions.
References: the provisions of Rural Code and Maritime Fishing Amended by this decree may be consulted, in their drafting, on the website Légifrance (http :// www. legifrance. gouv. en).
The Prime Minister,
On the report of the Minister of Agriculture, Agri-Food and Forestry,
Vu le Rural Code and Maritime Fishingincluding title IV of Book II;
Vu la Act No. 78-17 of 6 January 1978 modified on computers, files and freedoms;
See?Order No. 2005-1516 of 8 December 2005 on electronic exchanges between users and administrative authorities and between administrative authorities;
Vu le Decree No. 2010-112 of 2 February 2010 taken for the application of articles 9,10 and 12 Order No. 2005-1516 of 8 December 2005 on electronic exchanges between users and administrative authorities and between administrative authorities;
Vu the opinion of the National Commission on Informatics and Freedoms of 18 July 2013;
The State Council (section of public works) heard,
Decrete:
Section 1 of Chapter II of Book II title IV of the Rural and Maritime Fisheries Code (regulatory part) is amended as follows:
1° The fifth paragraph of section R. 242-4 is replaced by a paragraph to read:
"The deliberations of the council are taken by a majority vote. In case of equality, the president has a preponderant voice. » ;
2° Section R. 242-5 is amended as follows:
(a) The fifth preambular paragraph shall be replaced by the following subparagraph:
"The deliberations of the council are taken by a majority vote. In case of equality, the president has a preponderant voice. » ;
(b) The seventh preambular paragraph is deleted;
3° The title of sub-section 3 is as follows: " Election of members of regional councils";
4° Sections R. 242-7 to R. 242-9 are replaced by the following:
"Art. R. 242-7.-The members of the Regional Council of Order shall be elected by the veterinarians referred to in Article L. 241-1 and shall be registered in the table of the order of the Regional Council concerned by the elections.
"Each partner of a common practice corporation is individually electorate and eligible for the regional order board without the corporation being elected or eligible.
"Art. R. 242-8.-The vote takes place electronically via the internet.
"The use of electronic voting is organized in accordance with the fundamental principles that command electoral operations, including the sincerity of electoral operations, access to the vote of all voters, the secret of the ballot, the personal, free and anonymous character of the vote, the integrity of the votes cast, the effective monitoring of the ballot and the posteriori control of the election judge.
"Art. R. 242-9.-I. ― The security functions of the e-voting system via the internet shall be in accordance with the general safety reference provided for in theArticle 9 of Order No. 2005-1516 of 8 December 2005 on electronic exchanges between users and administrative authorities and between administrative authorities.
"The Internet electronic voting system has a backup device that offers the same guarantees and features as the main system and can automatically take over the relay in the event of a breakdown without affecting the data.
"An explanatory notice detailing the general operation of the electronic voting system via the internet is made available.
“II. ― The data on voters and their votes are the subject of two separate, dedicated and isolated automated information processings, respectively referred to as "electors file" and "electronic urn content".
"The purpose of the processing "registration of electors" is to provide each elector, from the list of electors, with codes enabling him to express his vote, to identify the electors who voted and to edit the list of electors.
"The purpose of the processing "content of the electronic urn" is to identify the votes cast. The data of this treatment are encrypted and cannot include a link for the identification of electors.
"The right to access and rectification of data is exercised with the Conseil supérieur de l'ordre des vétérinaires.
"III. • The Internet electronic voting system is subject to independent expertise to verify compliance with the anonymity, transparency, control and sincerity of the ballot. It covers the entire system installed before the vote, the use of the voting system during the vote and the subsequent steps to the vote.
"A preliminary report of expertise and all the security elements implemented are submitted to the National Commission on Information and Freedoms prior to the implementation of the voting system. The final report of expertise is provided upon request.
"IV. – A national technical committee composed of three members appointed by the Higher Council of the Order of Veterinarians among the elected members of the regional and higher councils shall ensure the smooth conduct of the voting operations.
"Candidates cannot be members of the national technical committee.
"The commission organizes electoral operations and supervises the actions of the service provider manager of the electronic voting system via the internet.
"It checks the actuality of the security devices provided to ensure the security of the personal data and the voting system as a whole, as well as the sealing operations of the voting system used, lists of electors, lists of candidates, list of ballots and electronic ballot boxes.
"The starting list and the voting meter are only accessible during the course of the election to the members of the national technical committee for the purpose of controlling it.
"V. ― An Agriculture Minister's order specifies the characteristics and implementation of automated treatments provided for in II, including the personal data categories registered and the recipients of this information. It also determines the guarantees surrounding the use of an external provider and the modalities of the independent expertise provided for in III."
5° Section R. 242-10 is amended as follows:
(a) In the first paragraph, the reference: "R. 242-9" is replaced by the reference: "R. 242-7";
(b) The second, third and fourth preambular paragraphs are replaced by four sub-items:
"At least six weeks before the elections, the president of the regional council shall send to each of the electors the date, hours and modalities of the election, the place in which he shall be made available to the electors a computer enabling them to vote, the places, the date and time of the count, the number of councillors to elect, the terms of the nominations and the address of the website on which the list of candidates and the professions of faith may be consulted. This shipment may be made electronically.
"Any candidate for elections must be registered on the list of electors and must be nominated at least one month before the date fixed for the start of the elections by registered letter addressed to the President of the Regional Council who acknowledges their receipt.
"At least two weeks before the election, the president of the regional council makes available to electors electronically the list of candidates and, where they exist, their professions of faith.
"In the same period, electors also receive the identifiers for e-voting via the Internet and an explanatory notice detailing the voting operations. Any new request by a communication elector of these identifiers is transmitted by the national technical commission to the service provider of the electronic voting system via the internet. An Agriculture Minister's order specifies how these identifiers are transmitted. » ;
6° Sections R. 242-11 to R. 242-13 are replaced by the following:
"Art. R. 242-11. -The list of candidates for the elections is presented in alphabetical order without distinction between the outgoing councillors and the new candidates, and without any indication of how they exercise. It indicates the maximum number of names to be checked with no invalidity.
"Art. R. 242-12.-To vote, the elector connects to the system using its identifier and password; he tiches on the list of candidates the names of the people he intends to elect. In the absence of a nullity of his vote, he cannot cheat a number of names higher than the number of seats to be filled.
"The vote is encrypted on the terminal used by the elector before it is transmitted to the "electronic urn" file. The link between the voting terminal and the server hosting the "electronic urn" file is also encrypted.
"After validating his vote, the elector has an electronic acknowledgement of receipt.
"A validated vote is final and cannot be modified.
"Art. R. 242-13.-For electors who do not have access to the Internet, a computer to connect to the voting site is made available to them, at hours and working days during the voting period and under conditions allowing the confidentiality of the vote, in each department concerned by the elections. During the vote, the elector may be assisted by a person of his or her choice. » ;
7° Section R. 242-14 is amended as follows:
(a) The first sentence of the second paragraph is replaced by the following:
"It is provided by a polling station composed of an elected member of the veterinary order appointed by the President of the Higher Council for the Order of Veterinarians, President, assisted by the oldest veterinarian and the youngest veterinarian present at the time of the opening of the session. An alternate from the chair shall be designated under the same conditions. » ;
(b) The second paragraph is supplemented by a sentence to read: "Candidates may not be nominated members of the polling station. » ;
(c) The fourth preambular paragraph is deleted;
8° Sections R. 242-15 and R. 242-16 are replaced by the following:
"Art. R. 242-15.-I. ― At the close of the ballot, the contents of the ballot box and the server-managed mailing lists are automatically fixed and sealed on all servers, under conditions guaranteeing the storage of the data.
"Before the defilement is opened, the chair of the polling station and its assessors use their decryption keys whose joint use allows access to the data of the file called "electronic urn content";
"The president has elements to verify the integrity of the system.
"After verification of the integrity of the file called "electronic urn content", the chair of the polling station and its assessors publicly proceed to the opening of the electronic urn.
“II. ― The following data appear legibly on the screen and are the subject of a secure edition allowing their transposition to the minutes:
"– the number of electors;
"– the final starting lists;
“– the count of electors who validated their vote;
“– the number of blank or void ballots;
“– the number of valid votes cast;
“– the count of the number of votes obtained by candidate.
"The polling station verifies that the total number of votes received electronically corresponds to the number of voters on the electronic voting list.
"The Internet electronic voting system is locked after the count so that it is impossible to resume or modify the result after the decision to close the count by the polling station.
"Art. R. 242-16.-Sont proclaimed elected candidates who obtained the largest number of votes up to the number of seats to be filled. In the event of equal suffrage between two candidates, the oldest is declared elected.
"Can't be elected from the same two-partner council of the same veterinary company. Where applicable, only one who collects the most votes is elected.
"White or null votes are not part of the votes cast.
"The President of the polling station shall prepare and sign a record of the counting operations";
9° Sections R. 242-18 and R. 242-19 are replaced by the following:
"Art. R. 242-18.-The polling station shall, within three days, transmit the list of new elected officials and the record of the counting operations to the Minister for Agriculture, the President of the Superior Council and the President of the Regional Council.
"The Minister for Agriculture publishes the list of elected officials in the Official Bulletin of the Ministry for Agriculture.
"Art. R. 242-19.-Until the expiry of the time limits for appeal and, when a litigation has been initiated, until the final court decision, the supporting files including the copy of the source and enforceable programs, the starting, results and backup files are kept under seal, under the control of the national technical commission.
"The procedure for counting recorded votes must, if necessary, be executed again.
"On the expiry of these deadlines, the destruction of the supporting files under the control of the national technical commission is carried out. » ;
10° Articles R. 242-20 and R. 242-21 are replaced by two articles as follows:
"Art. R. 242-20.-Each partner of a joint exercise company is individually elector and eligible for the Higher Council of Order without the corporation being elected or eligible.
"Art. R. 242-21.-The provisions of sections R. 242-8 to R. 242-12, R. 242-14 to R. 242-16, R. 242-18 and R. 242-19 apply for elections to the Superior Council of Order. The powers conferred on the President of the Regional Council of Order by these articles are exercised by the President of the Superior Council of Order. » ;
11° In R. 242-28, the words: "Official Journal of the French Republic" are replaced by the words: "Official Bulletin of the Ministry of Agriculture";
12° Section R. 242-30 is replaced by the following provisions:
"Art. R. 242-30.-I. ― If a vacancy among the members of a regional council or the Higher Council of Order as a result of death, resignation or any other cause is likely to result in the holding of new elections under this section II, the Office of the Higher Council shall declare it, if any, after being informed by the relevant regional council, to the Minister for Agriculture.
"Resignments, both to the Superior Council and to the regional councils, must be sent by registered letters to the President of the Superior Council or to the President of the regional council who acknowledges their receipt.
“II. ― Where a regional council or the Higher Council of Order has lost, as a result of the holidays, one-quarter of its members, it shall, within two months of the vacancy announcement, conduct additional elections under the conditions set out in subsections 3 and 4.
"However, in the year preceding the date of the elections for the renewal of the members of the board concerned, the supplementary elections are mandatory only in case the council has lost more than half of its members.
"When the supplementary election comes at the time of the elections for the renewal of Council members, or when it follows a number of holidays for terms remaining to run for a different period of time, the Council shall, at its first meeting, proceed by drawing lots to the designation of the member(s) whose term of office is limited to the following election, unless expressed by one or more of the elect to reduce the duration of their term.
"III. ― In the event of the cancellation of the elections by decision of an administrative court, the Minister for Agriculture shall determine by order the date of the new elections within a period not exceeding two months after the notification of the cancellation decision.
"The council shall, at its first meeting, draw lots for the appointment of members whose terms of office are limited to the following election, unless expressed by one or more of the elect to reduce their term to three years. » ;
13° Sections R. 241-81, R. 242-17, R. 242-22 to R. 242-26 and R. 242-31 are repealed.
The Minister of Agriculture, Agri-Food and Forestry is responsible for the execution of this Order, which will be published in the Official Journal of the French Republic.
Done on 31 December 2013.
Jean-Marc Ayrault
By the Prime Minister:
Minister of Agriculture,
agri-food and forest,
Stéphane Le Foll
