The Code of Good Practice in Electoral Mattersprovides that “electronic voting should be used only if it is safe and reliable; in particular, voters should be able to obtain a confirmation of their votes and to correct them, if necessary, respecting secret suffrage; the system must be transparent.” With regard to the use of electronic rather than manual counting, the legal framework should provide safeguards, with provisions in place so that the accuracy and soundness of hardware and software used for counting ballots can be verified independently. Whether manual, mechanical or electronic voting is used, procedures for auditing and inspection must be in place to ensure accuracy and reliability. In this respect, it should be noted that the aforementioned proposed amendment regarding the random audit of polling results explicitly precludes recounts in polling places where electronic ballot counting machines are used.