Current Situation
At a high level, key voting processes include voter registration, casting votes/ballots, certifying results, and announcing results. The digitization and sophistication of these processes vary widely around the world, from evoting to paper ballots to online voter registration and voting tracking dashboards.
Goals and Objectives
The ultimate goal is to improve trust in the voting process. Governments are seeking ways to improve the performance, security, accuracy, and reliability of voting systems — which can include auditable paper-based voting and/or evoting — while strengthening registration, voting, and chain-of-custody rules.
Technology Deployed
Hardware: Digital voting machines with next-gen security and paper audit trails as well as VPN and secure networks for transferring data
Software: Identity-based access control, multifactor ID, list database management, signature matching technologies, social media for outreach, and collaborative tools for remote legislative assembly, committee meetings, and parliamentary voting
Services: IT services and blockchain for tech trustworthiness for social outreach as well as fully managed voting networks to have some potential for 2022 and greater potential beyond that
Use Case Summary
For the long term, secure and resilient voting comes down to improving trustworthiness and making results easy to audit. Digital tools will continue to be used to digitize the voting workflow, from registration to casting votes/ballots to certifying results. This will include technologies such as blockchain, online voter portals, registration tools, and social media tools.