{"id":9412,"date":"2021-03-02T11:27:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T10:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/?p=9412"},"modified":"2021-07-15T12:15:03","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T10:15:03","slug":"the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig","title":{"rendered":"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CDU held a fully digital party conference for the first time in January 2021. The new CDU leader, Armin Laschet, was elected by 1,001 delegates using the POLYAS Live Voting. How the German party managed to prepare its party congress within 5 weeks and the situations it had to deal with were discussed in the interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig, the national managing director of the CDU.<\/p>\n

Dr. Hennewig, thank you very much for giving us an insight into your work and to share your perspective on Germany’s first digital national party conference.\u00a0How did you come to the decision to implement the CDU party congress digitally and to hold the election online? What alternatives did you consider?<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>In the run-up to the CDU party conference, we examined three options for holding the event: 1) The classic presence conference, 2) a hybrid decentralized event and 3) a purely digital event.<\/p>\n

In the end and after weighing up all the arguments, we decided in favor of a historic first, a purely digital version of the party conference, not least due to the development of the corona pandemic. And I think we can say: It was the right decision. The digital implementation set new standards.<\/p>\n

What was the legal basis of the election? Was it necessary to adjust the electoral regulations? What hurdles had to be taken?<\/h3>\n

The legal basis for digital voting in Germany was the Covid-19 law. The law enables \u201cdigital pre-voting\u201d, although it also stipulates that a legally binding final vote has to be carried out either by ballot box or postal vote. However, from a technical and organizational point of view, we wanted voting to be completely digital while also fulfilling the electoral principles for public elections as laid down in the constitution.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, in the run-up to the event we did not succeed with our political demand that legally compliant, purely digital election party conferences should be an option without a subsequent postal voting.<\/p>\n

How did you prepare for the online voting? What kind of scenarios did you account for?<\/h3>\n

We first checked the legal options and potential hurdles. Along with the legal aspects, the focus was also on feasibility: So the question was: How do we enable our 1,001 delegates between the ages of 20 and 88 to participate in the party conference without any problems? From the start we relied on offering our delegates a wide range of information, including step-by-step instructions, video tutorials, a service hotline and, last but not least, three test runs with the delegates in the run-up to the CDU party conference. The test runs in particular were time well spent.<\/p>\n

A further risk was the potential overload of our server capacities, and also cyber attacks. On the technology front, we ended up using three systems in parallel: Our website cdu.de for the stream, the digital plenary hall for the voting and speeches from the delegates, as well\u00a0as POLYAS<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for the voting. These systems all ran on different servers and our design even allowed for redundant line infrastructure from the studio. So although we had backups in place for the elections, luckily we didn’t need them.<\/p>\n

How did the election day go, and which of the planned scenarios actually occurred?<\/h3>\n

The digital ballots were particularly tense, as this type of implementation was a risk and we were very much aware of the public pressure. In fact, there were massive DDoS attacks on the Friday and Saturday, especially during the voting. Our cdu.de website as a \u201csacrificial system\u201d was sometimes difficult to access, but as described the three systems were separated from one another, and the course of the party conference itself was never endangered.<\/p>\n

How did you experience working with POLYAS?<\/h3>\n

Both in the run-up to and during the party conference, the collaboration was pleasant and very professional.<\/p>\n

Which elements of the digital CDU party conference do you want to keep for future meetings, and why?<\/h3>\n

Future party conferences will no longer be held offline only. Going forward, we will make greater use of hybrid formats so that everyone can take part and, at the same time, this will promote \u201cdigital thinking\u201d at party conferences. However, legal regulations will have to be adapted to allow for this. The party conference in January decided that the CDU should campaign for precisely this. And if we succeed, then it will certainly not be the last digital party conference to be held by the CDU in Germany.<\/p>\n

Thank you for the interview.<\/h3>\n

Learn more about online voting with POLYAS ><\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CDU held a fully digital party conference for the first time in January 2021. The new CDU leader, Armin Laschet, was elected by 1,001 delegates using the POLYAS Live Voting. How the German party managed to prepare its party congress within 5 weeks and the situations it had to deal with were discussed in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","ub_ctt_via":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1,37,736,240,39],"tags":[75,2644,2638],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/digital-CDU-party-conference-2021.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Anna-Maria Palzkill","author_link":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/author\/a-palzkillpolyas-de"},"yoast_head":"\nThe digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The digital CDU party conference was held purely digitally. Dr. Stefan Hennewig, Federal Executive Director of the CDU, explains how it was organized.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The digital CDU party conference was held purely digitally. Dr. Stefan Hennewig, Federal Executive Director of the CDU, explains how it was organized.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"POLYAS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-03-02T10:27:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-15T10:15:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/digital-CDU-party-conference-2021.jpg?fit=860%2C200&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"860\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anna-Maria Palzkill\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@annalysiss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anna-Maria Palzkill\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig\",\"name\":\"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-02T10:27:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-15T10:15:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7f0c634cd9f361b087084cd0c9dd52ac\"},\"description\":\"The digital CDU party conference was held purely digitally. Dr. Stefan Hennewig, Federal Executive Director of the CDU, explains how it was organized.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"de-DE\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Startseite\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/de\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"POLYAS\",\"description\":\"the blog for secure online voting\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"de-DE\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7f0c634cd9f361b087084cd0c9dd52ac\",\"name\":\"Anna-Maria Palzkill\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"de-DE\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/14fc41d5721e074dbbb080b61a20bc3b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/14fc41d5721e074dbbb080b61a20bc3b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Anna-Maria Palzkill\"},\"description\":\"Als Kommunikationswissenschaftlerin interessiere ich mich f\u00fcr den Einfluss von Technik auf das Leben zwischen Politik und Wirtschaft. Ich m\u00f6chte kleinen Zwischent\u00f6nen auf die Spur kommen und schrecke nicht vor gro\u00dfen Worten zur\u00fcck.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/annalysiss\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/author\/a-palzkillpolyas-de\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig","description":"The digital CDU party conference was held purely digitally. Dr. Stefan Hennewig, Federal Executive Director of the CDU, explains how it was organized.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig","og_locale":"de_DE","og_type":"article","og_title":"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig","og_description":"The digital CDU party conference was held purely digitally. Dr. Stefan Hennewig, Federal Executive Director of the CDU, explains how it was organized.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig","og_site_name":"POLYAS","article_published_time":"2021-03-02T10:27:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-07-15T10:15:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":860,"height":200,"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/digital-CDU-party-conference-2021.jpg?fit=860%2C200&ssl=1","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Anna-Maria Palzkill","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@annalysiss","twitter_misc":{"Verfasst von":"Anna-Maria Palzkill","Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit":"4 Minuten"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig","url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig","name":"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2021-03-02T10:27:48+00:00","dateModified":"2021-07-15T10:15:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7f0c634cd9f361b087084cd0c9dd52ac"},"description":"The digital CDU party conference was held purely digitally. Dr. Stefan Hennewig, Federal Executive Director of the CDU, explains how it was organized.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"de-DE","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/the-digital-cdu-party-conference-interview-with-dr-stefan-hennewig#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Startseite","item":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/de"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The digital CDU party conference \u2013 interview with Dr. Stefan Hennewig"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/","name":"POLYAS","description":"the blog for secure online voting","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"de-DE"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7f0c634cd9f361b087084cd0c9dd52ac","name":"Anna-Maria Palzkill","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"de-DE","@id":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/14fc41d5721e074dbbb080b61a20bc3b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/14fc41d5721e074dbbb080b61a20bc3b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Anna-Maria Palzkill"},"description":"Als Kommunikationswissenschaftlerin interessiere ich mich f\u00fcr den Einfluss von Technik auf das Leben zwischen Politik und Wirtschaft. Ich m\u00f6chte kleinen Zwischent\u00f6nen auf die Spur kommen und schrecke nicht vor gro\u00dfen Worten zur\u00fcck.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.polyas.de","https:\/\/twitter.com\/annalysiss"],"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/author\/a-palzkillpolyas-de"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/digital-CDU-party-conference-2021.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72Pnr-2rO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8531,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/digital-voting-in-politics","url_meta":{"origin":9412,"position":0},"title":"Digital voting in politics: POLYAS and the CDU party conference","date":"16\/02\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The CDU implemented the first fully digital national party conference and set new standards with digital voting. This was the first time that POLYAS Live Voting was used to help the 1,001 delegates conduct a secure vote from the comfort of their homes. Being able to enhance the CDU party\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "About POLYAS"","img":{"alt_text":"Digital Voting with POLYAS","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/POLYAS-Digital-Voting-in-Politics.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9419,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/virtual-elections-in-parties-legal-basics","url_meta":{"origin":9412,"position":1},"title":"Virtual elections in parties: Legal basics","date":"07\/04\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Postal elections are experiencing a breakthrough. The pandemic means that growing numbers of people are in favor of postal voting. However, there is an alternative: Virtual elections such as digital membership polling in parties. In this blog post, we outline the legal situation with virtual elections and the opportunities that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "About POLYAS"","img":{"alt_text":"Virtual elections in parties","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/virtual-elections-in-parties.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9063,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/free-test-voting","url_meta":{"origin":9412,"position":2},"title":"Free test voting: Get to know POLYAS Live Voting now","date":"01\/06\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"POLYAS developed Live Voting so that you can conduct live voting that is legally compliant and barrier-free at any in-person event or at a virtual conference. You can also include voting for candidates in your live voting. After all, this is how the CDU held this year\u2019s party conference with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "About POLYAS"","img":{"alt_text":"POLYAS Live Voting free test vote","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Kostenlose-Testabstimmung-Live-Voting.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9425,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/virtual-voting-despite-corona-potential-for-political-parties","url_meta":{"origin":9412,"position":3},"title":"Virtual voting despite Corona \u2013 potential for political parties","date":"10\/03\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"2021 is a super election year. Elections are taking place in seven federal states and the general election is also taking place at the end of September. But how can the parties elect their candidates contact-free during a global pandemic? What are the opportunities and advantages of virtual voting for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "About POLYAS"","img":{"alt_text":"virtual elections","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/virtual-elections.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9659,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/polyas\/25-years-polyas-25-percent-discount","url_meta":{"origin":9412,"position":4},"title":"POLYAS turns 25 and celebrates with a 25 percent discount","date":"31\/08\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Can you remember what you did exactly 25 years ago this summer? We sure do as we provided our first online election: 30,000 eligible voters raised their voice digitally with POLYAS in Finland in the summer of 1996. Nowadays, we count more than 500 customers and 5 million voters. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "About POLYAS"","img":{"alt_text":"25 years POLYAS 25 percent discount","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/25-Jahre-25-Prozent-Rabatt-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4983,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/digital-democracy\/digital-participation-advantages-disadvantages","url_meta":{"origin":9412,"position":5},"title":"Digital Participation – the Advantages and Disadvantages","date":"10\/05\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In the previous installments of this series, we have covered some of the different forms of digital participation. Today we will be assessing the overall benefits and drawbacks of participating in a digital world.\u00a0 The Advantages of Digital Participation The main goal of online democracy is the strengthened integration of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Digital Democracy"","img":{"alt_text":"Digital Participation","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Digital-Participation.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9418,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9412\/revisions\/9418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}