Electoral commissions often need to implement legislative changes quickly while maintaining public confidence in the voting process. When voting methods change, agencies need to manage complex ballot structures, large volumes of data and tight statutory timeframes under strict scrutiny.
This case study outlines how the Electoral Commission South Australia (ECSA) and Fujifilm Data Management Solutions (Fujifilm DMS) implemented a new Legislative Council counting approach in time for the 2018 South Australian State Election and what other electoral agencies can consider when planning similar projects.
Organisation Profile
The Electoral Commission South Australia (ECSA) is an independent agency that aims to ensure that demands for electoral services and participation in democratic processes are met fairly, honestly and within the law. The minister responsible is the Attorney General. ECSA is composed of five branches that provide professional and impartial electoral services for South Australians.
ECSA is legislatively responsible for:
- Conducting and administering elections
- Ensuring electors are enrolled to vote
- Registering political parties
- Maintaining the electoral roll in conjunction with the Australian Electoral Commission
Customers are South Australian citizens.
Business Challenge
In September 2017, the South Australian Legislative Council passed legislation that changed the upper house electoral system. The new system had to be in place for the South Australian election in March 2018.
The partner chosen by ECSA to support the South Australian State Election had to deliver a solution that instils confidence in electoral integrity. The partner also had to be agile in developing and implementing solutions to resolve complexities that were underpinned by security and governance.
With proven experience and scale, Fujifilm Data Management Solutions (Fujifilm DMS) was well placed to deliver the required outcome for ECSA.
“Fujifilm DMS have been very flexible about timetable and schedules, and have worked happily with our requirements and preferences without any problems. We would highly recommend Fujifilm DMS for any digitisation needs. Their professional skills in imaging, their communication and their customer relations are all excellent.”
David Gully, Deputy Commissioner
South Australian State Election 2018
Solution
The key focus of the Fujifilm DMS approach was to achieve the highest level of accuracy using automated data capture, data validation and operator correction along with physical data entry to produce 100% accurate results within the processing timeframe.
In partnership with ECSA, the new Legislative Council verification and count solution was developed, tested and made operational within 16 weeks of documentation and planning in November 2017.
The solution was based on high speed scanning and image recognition technology to capture Legislative Council vote preferences. Optical character recognition (OCR) technology captured voter preferences with manual verification by a human operator.
The Fujifilm DMS front end web application was developed to allow for the entry of single preferences for each group from each of ECSA’s 740 voting collection points, representing 58% of all ballot papers. This created 18,000 data batch files containing the group preferences for those ballot papers with a single group preference marked.
Scanning & Tracking
Using imaging software, high speed scanners captured and digitised every required field on each ballot paper.
Ballot papers were managed in batches so that physical ballots, scanned images and associated data could be tracked and reconciled throughout the process.
From receipt to secure storage, each ballot container was tracked at every step of the process.
Verification and Data Entry
Following scanning, the Legislative Council ballot papers were processed using intelligent character recognition (ICR) and workflow technology. Ballot votes were further verified by operators to ensure data accuracy.
Any ballot paper with ambiguous markings or discrepancies was directed to ECSA for adjudication.
Security
Security was paramount for a project of this scale and importance. The Fujifilm DMS Information Security Management System which is certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2013 with ISM controls was designed into the solution.
Fujifilm DMS used its South Australian processing production site for the Legislative Council ballot paper processing. The processing site had:
- All staff and contractors security cleared
- Full compliance and training to the ECSA ballot paper handling policy
- All transfer of every ballot paper tracked and conducted under the supervision of authorised personnel
- CCTV coverage with security guards and patrols
- Secure ballot paper work and storage zones
- Designated secure areas for ECSA staff for all facets of the project
- Scrutineer management
Outcomes
The scanning solution performed by Fujifilm DMS captured data from over 460,531 ballots in a 10 day period and was delivered 100% accurately.
This included:
- 1,398 secure containers received and warehoused
- 10,033 total batches processed
- 634,837 Single Vote Above the Line (web portal) transactions
- Delivery on the agreed timeframes
- a stronger platform for ongoing service enhancements
“From the commencement of negotiations, through the planning and development process and during execution and wrap up, Fujifilm DMS were able to meet all of ECSA’s requirements with professionalism and understanding. Without that expertise and proven track record, the project would have been far more challenging.”
David Gully, Deputy Commissioner
South Australian State Election 2018
