Case Study: AEC Senate Reform Program

Business Objective & Challenges

 

On 18 March 2016, the biggest electoral reform in 30 years was passed by the Australian Parliament, following a marathon 40‑hour debate, which changed the Senate voting rules. Voters are now required to nominate a minimum of six preferences above or 12 preferences below the line on the Senate ballot paper.

 

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) now had the challenge of a substantially more complex and highly manual process capturing and verifying every field on the Senate ballot paper.

 

The AEC needed a trusted and capable partner who has experience in election processing; who is agile in developing and implementing solutions to resolve complexity; and who has a proven track record of creating efficiency in large transactional projects that are underpinned by security and governance.

Developing the Solution

 

In partnership with the AEC, the new Senate verification and count solution was developed, tested and made operational within 12 weeks after initial documentation and planning in March 2016.

 

The solution is based on the latest scanning and image recognition technology to capture Senate vote preferences. Optical character recognition technology captured voter preferences, with manual verification by a human operator.

 

Scanning & Tracking

 

Using imaging software, the high-speed scanners captured and digitised every field on the ballot paper. The length of the ballot papers posed a big challenge and to resolve this issue, Fujifilm DMS custom designed and worked with a local vendor to manufacture the ‘creasers’ and long trays to feed the ballot papers into the scanners. 

 

Verification & Data Entry

 

Following scanning, the Senate 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 papers with ambiguous markings or discrepancies were directed to the AEC for adjudication.

 

Security

 

Security was absolutely paramount for a project of this scale and importance. The Fujifilm DMS certification to ISO/IEC27001:2013 Information Security Management Systems and demonstrated security compliance was one of the main reasons we were approved as the vendor.

 

The Senate count system was certified by the National Association of Testing Authorities. It was independently reviewed for security vulnerabilities by a specialist agency and accredited under the Australian Information Security Registered Assessors Program.

The Outcome

 

Our solution scanned over 14.4 million Senate ballots papers, capturing and digitising over 86.4 million ballot paper fields.

 

  • Removed of most of the manual administrative tasks, improved accuracy and efficiency

 

  • Streamlined the process, saving time, costs and human resources

 

  • Delivered on agreed time frames

 

  • Delivered on intended outcome of accuracy

 

  • Secured storage of the ballot paper image and transmission of electoral data

“We felt like a valued client throughout the entire engagement with Fuji Xerox* and they demonstrated innovation to solve key problems”

Australian Electoral Commision (AEC)

*Fuji Xerox Document Management Solutions is now known as FUJIFILM Data Management Solutions Pty Ltd