How IT Can Help Streamline the Voting Process and Improve Accountability

By Charles Castelly, Analyst

With the presidential election around the corner, citizens are contemplating when and how they are going to vote — in person or via mail-in ballot. This is an unusual year due to concerns stemming from the global pandemic, and with that comes necessary changes for both governments and voters. The outcome of this election will rely heavily on mail-in voting, which presents some unique challenges.

Election accountability is especially crucial this year and with only a few weeks remaining, states are rushing to ensure their systems are up to par and can handle the influx of mail-in ballots expected.

Citizens are demanding accountability in the vote tabulation. Several states have rolled out applications that enable citizens to track their ballots — from request to vote count. However, there are handful of states that do not currently have an online tracking option, such as Connecticut, Mississippi, Missouri, Wyoming and New York. Other states have tracking at a state level but have little to no tracking capability at the county level. 

Vendors can help state and local governments with quick, deployable technologies in these areas:

Process Automation

The vote tabulation process for many state and local governments is often manual and time-consuming. Deploying a robotic process automation tool could quickly and easily streamline certain aspects of the vote tabulation process and speed up reporting time.

Application Integration

Key to robotic process automation is the integration of applications — and the elections process is certainly a collection of multiple systems. Integrating information from the voter registration systems, election management systems, election night reporting and vote audit systems would be a crucial first step to accurately and efficiently managing ballots and providing accurate tabulation results.

Cybersecurity

Protection of the systems used to manage each aspect the elections process is crucial. Accuracy of the vote tabulations will be watched carefully, so state and local governments will need to ensure that the election systems are secure. Securing everything from the endpoints to the network will be areas vendors can assist state and local governments.

Conclusion

With only a few weeks to go before the election, state and local governments do not have a lot of time to deploy new solutions, which creates a perfect market for COTS vendors. Partner with state and local governments to ensure vote accountability with turn-key solutions that deliver efficiency.

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