Election TechREPORTS^™
InfoSENTRY® Services   www.infosentry.com   info@infosentry.com
Issue 7 May 2002                          Privacy Policy

  FEATURE 1: Election TidBytes is now Election TechREPORTS
  FEATURE 2: British Use Alternative Voting Technologies: Postal Voting Reports Early Success Mobile Phone Text;  Direct Record Equipment; Internet Voting; Kiosks; Postal Voting; ...and the winner is?
  FEATURE 3: Feature Election Office: Wake County (NC) Board of Elections

Election TidBytes is now 
Election TechREPORTS

We have made important changes in our  Election TidBytes newsletter. The focus will be the same: a not terribly technical look at recent technology trends and issues facing election offices. However, we are going to distribute it solely as an e-letter. This move will allow us to produce the e-letter monthly instead of quarterly. Each month we will send an e-mail to election officials notifying them of that month's issue and providing them with a link to the e-letter, which will be on our website. If you do not want to receive the notice, we will provide a convenient way for you to remove your name from the list. If you are an election official and are not on our e-mailing list to receive notification of the availability of the monthly e-letter or if there is an election official or staff member you think should be on the list, please send an email to et@infosentry.com . We will be glad to add election officials and their staffs to our notification list.

Thanks to everyone for your interest in and support for  Election TidBytes. We think you will enjoy the new Election TechREPORTS™ and want to get your reactions to the changed format. Send a note with your reactions and article ideas to glenn_newkirk@infosentry.com .

British Use Alternative Voting Technologies: 
Postal Voting Reports Early Success

May 2 was both an end and a beginning. It was the end of a tremendous amount of preparation for counting votes in the 2002 elections in over 170 localities in Great Britain. It was also the beginning of a new era of using alternatives to traditional polling place elections. 

Thirty local councils received authorization from the British Department for Transport, Local Government, and the Regions (DTLR) to change some aspects of the way they conducted the May 2, 2002 local elections. Some chose to extend the hours available for voting. Others chose modifications in handling absentee ballots or selected some form of electronic ballot counting. Still others offered a type of voter registration somewhat akin to same-day registration, a departure from the current registration system that is based on a much less frequent window of opportunity for getting on the voter registry.

However, some local councils chose to implement more dramatic voting technologies, such as voting by Internet, kiosks, mobile text phones, and all-postal voting. A goal was to expand voter access to the ballot, halting a decline in voter turnout and participation.

Before describing each of these technologies and the initial results of the "pilot schemes," it is important to set a few very important background points for the elections. 

First, the formal campaign season in the UK is much shorter than in the United States. Mercifully, British citizens are not bombarded with 6 - 12 months of television ads prior to an election. 

Second, British local election ballots are very short compared with the "bed sheet ballots" we typically see in the US. Ballot length has an important ramification on potential uses of certain electronic technologies. For example, it is possible that mobile phone text messaging lends itself better to use with short ballots than to long ballots. 

Third, levels of adoption of various technologies differ substantially in the UK and the US.  US citizens probably have more access to computer technology in their homes. UK citizens have substantially more advanced, widespread interactive television and mobile text messaging than in the US.   

Fourth, there were 30 local councils in all of Great Britain involved in these pilot schemes--and only selected wards in some of these 30 jurisdictions. So, the political and geographic scope did not cover the entire electorate. (Nonetheless, hardware and software vendors will undoubtedly hype the elections to the point that we will feel as though the entire European continent used their systems.) 

Fifth, pilot scheme councils typically mailed information to voters in the participating wards prior to the election explaining the voting technology options available to them. The information typically included the voter's PIN number and password. It also included other items that might be needed with particular voting methods, such as kiosk locations, Internet web sites, and text messaging phone numbers. In several localities, voting technology vendors assisted in producing some very attractive information materials. (We picked up a couple of great beer coasters touting 21st Century Voting in the 21st Century City of Sheffield.)

Sixth, technology vendors went to substantial lengths to assist local councils in administering these pilot schemes. Apart from BT (British Telecom), vendors from the US provided assistance at various levels of commitment throughout the local councils. Their presence was so prevalent that one national media source referred to the assistance being provided by American "chad masters." It was truly Chad Masters in King Arthur's Court.

Seventh, while US vendors were on the scene to discuss their "historic" roles in these pilot schemes, we did not see other Americans in evidence to take advantage of this wonderful learning opportunity. Washington "election reformers" appear to have been too exhausted from conjuring up their own horror scenarios of voter fraud in the 2000 presidential election to study seriously how technology can be useful in election administration. Some of them appear so busy dreaming up reasons why various election technologies simply cannot work that they do not have time to watch other elections systems using them successfully.

Finally, the roles of central government and the parties in elections and election mobilization are significantly different in the UK and the US. These differences will have substantial impact on the ultimate widespread use of the technologies.

There are numerous other nuances in the two electoral systems, both subtle and bold, that we will leave to political scientists, journalists, other researchers, and pundits to study.  However, we want to focus briefly on the non-traditional technologies that the British electorate used in the May 2 local elections.

Mobile Phone Text Message

Use of mobile phones to send text messages is a prevalent practice in Great Britain. It is prevalent among the young who are particularly adept at tapping out and transmitting messages on the small keyboards. In this election, voters in some wards had the option of sending an encrypted text message with their votes up until the close of polling.

Approximately 7 - 10 days before the day of ballot counting voters received from election officials a Poll Card that explained all the voting methods available to them. The Poll Card also listed "candidate codes" for the candidates standing for office. Voters entered their PIN numbers, their passwords, and the candidate codes of their choice. Next, they transmitted the encrypted text message to a designated phone number. After sending the text message ballot, the voters received a return message notifying of receipt of the vote. (Remember, the ballots in these local elections were very short, typically offering party candidates for a single position on a ballot.)

Direct Record Equipment

Several jurisdictions offered direct record equipment to constituents, giving them the  opportunity to use capabilities such as the latest touch screen systems for voting. Newham Council in East London saw one of the larger uses of touch-screen systems. These systems are the ones offered by major US voting equipment manufacturers and their global affiliates. 

Internet Voting

Internet voting probably was the method with the most advanced media and vendor hype. In Sheffield, voters in the pilot wards of  Hallam, Manor, and Nether Edge could go to www.votesheffield.com, log in with a PIN and password (also printed on the Poll Card received in the mail prior to election day), and cast their votes. These voters received a confirmation of their votes on the screen in near real-time mode. Typically, the time window for voting was approximately one week before the close of polling on the May 2 election day.

Of course, there was a major focus on security. The system had significant security rules in place to prevent even national election officials from being able to enter the network and system centers operated by British Telecom and other major providers. One of the most interesting findings from the Electoral Commission's post-election interviews and focus groups (discussed below) will be the degree to which voters who used the Internet concerned themselves with the security measures. Similarly interesting will be the degree to which voters who did not use Internet voting made their decision based on security concerns.

Kiosks

Voters in selected wards also had the option of using public kiosks around the city to cast their votes. Going to any kiosk, the voters could enter their  PINs and passwords and cast their votes. As with Internet voting, the voters received an immediate confirmation of their votes on the kiosk screen. 

The kiosk did not have to be in the voter's home ward. In fact, we viewed a public kiosk like the one on the right in a demonstration tent at the 2002 World Snooker championship being held in Sheffield on Election Day. There are similar stations available in public buildings in Sheffield.

It is important to note that these kiosks are in place for other public information uses around the city. The ability to use them for voting is an "add on" function. The kiosk on the left, being examined by InfoSENTRY's Helen Sims, is a rugged device out on the street in the city center. These kiosks, which have won European design awards, largely operate without significant public funding. In Sheffield, the city has entered into a long-term contract with advertising interests to place advertisements on the backs of the kiosks, which are located in very heavy trafficked city areas. Of course, the town council retains the right to refuse any particular advertising content. 

It is not the usual school gym, church, fire station, or city hall polling place. However, its marginal cost to use for elections was very low--and it did not require recruiting and training election workers. 

Postal Voting

Thirteen of the 30 local councils involved in the experiment tried an all postal election. The process was simple and straightforward. Election officials mailed ballots to all registered voters in the participating election jurisdictions just over a week before the May 2 election day tabulation. Voters marked their ballots and returned them in postage-paid envelopes. Typically, the ballots had to be in the office for tabulation by the close of polls on May 2. 

The return envelopes usually contained a unique bar code. Election officials scanned the barcodes, recording the fact that the voter had returned a ballot--and preventing entry of a duplicate ballot. The  Chorley Borough Council in Lancastershire was one of the larger jurisdictions using an all postal election, involving over 75,000 registered voters. In those areas using all postal elections, it was typical for the election officials to work closely with postal officials to assure proper ballot handling. In some election jurisdictions, postal officials made special checks after normal delivery hours to assure that all timely posted ballots had been delivered.

(We note that while the procedure in these sites bore some striking similarities to the "vote by mail" processes used by our friends in Oregon and Washington, there was one major difference. The postal voting procedures in the UK did not give evidence of use of signature comparisons based on digitized signatures in the voter registration database. Discussions with UK election officials revealed substantial interest in this system feature.)

...and the winner is?

It is easy to say that the winner in these pilot schemes was the British electorate--and the Government. That conclusion also appears to be accurate. The voters in the pilot jurisdictions had choices of unique, interesting, and convenient ways to vote. Early indications are that they took advantage of the opportunity to use one method heavily: postal voting.  

It appears from preliminary analysis that postal voting had a dramatic impact on voter turnout. Here is a table of turnout results, prepared by the Department for Transport, Local Government, and the Regions (DTLR), which oversaw the pilot schemes: 

 * Awaiting final validated figures.

The first local authority listed, Chorley, was a large one and the percentage increase in turnout over the 2000 local elections is stunning. 

The other technologies had their successes as well. According to a post-election DTLR news release:

• "In Swindon 4,293 people voted on line via the council's website - over 10% of those who voted. In addition over 2,000 voted via touch telephone - representing 5% of those who voted;
  
• In the two pilot wards in Sheffield over 30% of those who voted did so via electronically;
  
• St Albans announced the first e-voting and counting results of the local elections just four minutes after the close of poll. In the two wards piloting e-democracy over half those voting did so online or by phone (26.5% used the internet and 23.9% the phone)."

So, the skeptics about whether technology  can be used successfully now have the burden of proof squarely on their shoulders if they want to argue that voting by Internet, kiosk, and mobile text messaging  cannot be used successfully in binding public elections. The systems in the pilot schemes appear to have worked well. There have been no reports of network, hardware, or software failures. There have been no reports to date of security breaches or voter fraud. 

The debate over how to provide the broad public with an accessible, secure, and cost effective means of voting has received a jolt of invaluable information from these experiments. The information indicates that a method of balloting, vote by mail, that only three months ago a US Senate bill would have crushed has the potential of significantly boosting voter turnout. If boosting voter turnout and participation truly is a goal of policymakers, a prudent step would be to support and improve the potential of postal voting and the other "e-democracy" technologies. 

The UK's Electoral Commission is an independent organization established by Parliament to oversee campaign contributions and spending, as well as to review electoral law and practice. It is undertaking a detailed research and analysis effort to assess these technologies. The research will involve detailed analysis of voting turnout in the 30 jurisdictions. It will include a substantial and well-structured set of interviews and focus groups with voters and non-voters. 

• "Make voting more straightforward for the public;
  
• Make elections more accessible, either by making it more convenient to vote or by making voting more attractive to people currently less likely to vote;
  
• Make the administration of elections more efficient and cost effective;
  
• Maintain or increase the level of security at elections."

The Electoral Commission's report will be issued within three months. We look forward to the results and will post information from the report when it is released.

(NOTE: We want to thank the city election officials, the  DTLR staff, and the Election Commission staff who took time out of their very hectic schedules to provide us with information and tours. It was wonderful hospitality!)

Feature Election Office: 
Wake County, North Carolina, Board of Elections

Wake County North Carolina has approximately 400,000 registered voters and is home to Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital city. 

Cherie Poucher, CERA, has been Director of the Wake County Board of Elections (BOE) since 1991 and in that time the County has experienced over 67% population growth and the number of precincts has doubled to 181.  The BOE attempts to keep the precincts under 3000 registered voters.  Vote tabulation is accomplished with one optical scan machine per precinct.  Cherie heads a permanent staff of 12 employees.

The Wake County BOE has been a leader in technical innovation in election administration.  Cherie’s office was an early adopter of a document imaging-based voter registration system that runs on the Windows NT 4.0 operating system and the Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 database management system.  It was a difficult implementation that featured the usual “business process re-engineering” to devise a system based around scanned images of voter registration cards and other voter communications.  To complicate the transition further, the implementation also involved a seriously stretched system vendor.  However, Wake County now has complete control over the system’s source code and uses a local vendor to maintain the software.

Cherie brought the project in within budget and is strongly committed to a high level of automation and document imaging.  “Our plans were to save time, money, and space.  Having access to voter documentation online (instead of running to the card files to answer routine questions) saves us time and money.  Not having to purchase more expensive and expansive revolving card files has saved us money and space.  It took a lot of time and worry to make it happen, but all told, having all of our records scanned has been worth the trouble.”

Wake County and Mecklenburg County (NC) were among the first counties in the country to place all of their voter registration records into searchable databases on the Internet.  In both counties, the Internet-based system also allows downloads of registered voter lists by precinct.  This innovation has received praise from media organizations, citizens groups, and academic researchers around the country.  On a more practical side, the system proved invaluable during the primary elections in 2000 when the production system went down just before an election. The BOE staff used the Internet database to respond to the usual flood of public inquiries and calls from precinct officials about registration status.

InfoSentry Services is pleased to have worked with Cherie  Poucher and the staff of the Wake County BOE on several information technology projects since 1996.

Please click here to visit our main election systems consulting page

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Please contact et@infosentry.com if you would like to get a PDF version or a laser printed copy of this newsletter for distribution in your election office.

InfoSENTRY Services, Inc.
2 Hannover Square, Suite 1740 Raleigh, NC 27601
P.O. Box 28048, Raleigh, NC 27611
Phone: 919.838.8570
Glenn Newkirk's e-mail: glenn_newkirk@infosentry.com

Copyright 2002, InfoSENTRY® Services, Inc. All fights reserved. Reproduction and dissemination without the express written permission of InfoSENTRY® Services, Inc. is strictly prohibited. InfoSENTRY Services, Inc. publishes Election TechReports monthly, focusing on technology trends and issues in election offices.  From time to time, Election TechReports might mention the name of vendors' hardware or software products. However, InfoSENTRY® Services is completely independent from hardware and software vendors. Mentions of vendors' hardware and software products in no way constitutes an endorsement or indication of worthiness for those vendors or products.