They also needed to support a range of storage options and peripherals.

An earlier voting machine system was based on a proprietary operating system called Virtuos. By 2000, Brazil had installed more than 350,000 electronic ballot boxes based on the Virtuos design.

In 2002, Unisys won a bid to provide an additional 56,000 electronic voting machines. In developing its system, Unisys evaluated Virtuos and made the decision to switch the design to Windows CE .NET 4.1 based on CE's features, security enhancements, reliability, support for a broad range of peripherals, advanced power management, development tool suite, and licensing cost, according to a case study published by Microsoft. Using the development tools included with Windows CE .NET, Unisys was able to customize the OS and develop all of the required device drivers in just six months, Microsoft says.

To help the Brazilian government's satisfy its national security requirements, Microsoft provided TSE with access to the Windows CE source code. "Microsoft was extremely helpful in opening the Windows CE source code to provide the access that we requested," commented Paulo Camaro, Chief Information Officer for the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. "The political parties had access to the Windows CE Shared Source code and stated that there was no possibility of fraud or manipulation within this system. Prevention of fraud was one of the primary benefits of this technology."

Learn more about Brazil's interesting Windows CE application in this Microsoft case study.