Increased large-scale testing will start to allow a full 20-month lead-in time for the operation. Technology  firm DRS and partners Electoral Reform Services, the consortium which ran the system in 2007 also bid for the 2012 contract, but this was instead awarded to software giant Logica and election company Opt2Vote.

Logica ('we work in Scotland') back in 2009 appointed Martin Ewart (right) as its GM in Scotland and Opt2Vote, who failed to win the work in 2007, launched its new offices at 10 York Place, Edinburgh in March this year, to reinforce its commitment to its Scottish customer base.

It's not all bad news for DRS either, which has won the contract for the e-counting of votes in the London mayoral elections, to be held on 3rd May 2012.

Election chiefs have made some key improvements to the actual e-contract. On election night in 2007, several counts across Scotland, including Edinburgh, were abandoned and resumed the next day because of problems with electronic counting machines.

Edinburgh's returning officer (left) Tom Aitchison criticised DRS, reporting they ran too few  training sessions; that these did not meet the  senior staff needs who were overseeing the count; and sessions were too far in advance of actual polling day. DRS agreed a fee reduction of £103,000 in compensation for the problems.

In 2007 both Scottish Parliament and council elections, held on the same day, used e-counting. Elections have now been separated. Parliament elections in 2012 will use traditional manual vote counting. The single transferable vote system in council elections involves such complex calculations that there apparently is no practical alternative to e-counting.

Aitchison, who is also convener of the Interim Electoral Management Board for Scotland, said: "Over the last 12 months, returning officers have worked closely with the Scottish Government to develop an e-counting system specification that learns the lessons from our experience in 2007."

Logica'sAiden Honley (right) said: "We will test, test, and test until we have absolute confidence that not just the software but the whole system works. That will culminate in a bulk test with 165,000 ballot papers well before the election."

Interesting times for counting machines and e-voting.