ECES and Democracy Essentials (DE) have collaborated since their establishment in 2010 in developing ICT applications for electoral stakeholders, especially Electoral Management Bodies and Civil Society Organizations. Thanks to the longstanding collaboration between the Founder of ECES Fabio Bargiacchi and the founder of DE Khaldoun Dudin and their experience in promoting electoral and democratic strengthening, we have jointly created several apps and guidelines to support electoral stakeholders and practitioners in their tasks, including the development of electoral forms and ballot paper design. DE is a Brussels based enterprise which plays an important role in providing services in the wide domain of democracy support. It offers ICT related technical expertise applied in the fields of electoral management, electoral assistance and observation but also for parliamentary and political party development, media and elections, migration and development.
We developed all theese applications with DE in the context of projects funded mainly by the European Union and several of its Member States (namely: Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Luxembourg and Ireland) and implemented by ECES.
Through this partnership, we have produced seven distinct apps and a platform called "Global Election Management System (GEMS)", which we tailor to the need of the different electoral contexts and countries. These are a testimony to the leading-edge work of ECES on ICTs to provide state-of-the-art solutions to electoral management bodies and other electoral stakeholders to improve their own systems contributing to the strengthening of democratic principles. Here below a short description of the applications:
- Roster of Electoral Assistance Experts
- Polling Station Allocation System via satellites
- Poll Workers Management System (PWMS)
- Electoral Translator App
- Unified Social Media Monitoring and Early Warning System
- Electoral Results Aggregator (for EMBs and CSOs)
- Voter List Digitalisation System
- Global Election Management System (GEMS)
Roster of Electoral Assistance Experts
The Roster is an innovative application developed through the accumulation of 20 years of knowledge, experience, and professional networks of ECES founders who worked in various EU institutions and international organizations that implement electoral assistance and election observation. The primary goal of the app is to provide support to electoral stakeholders in countries where ECES has conducted or completed projects. The Roster's significant added value lies in ECES's ability to rapidly mobilise highly qualified expertise using the roster. The process for mobilising experts primarily involves consultation with the roster, exchanges with donors and beneficiaries, and establishing a Human Resource Plan for each project jointly with donors and beneficiaries.
Polling Station Allocation System (GIS)
The PAS-GIS is an application that utilises Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to map the locations of polling stations in a country. This tool is designed to facilitate logistical and operational planning for electoral events, thereby enhancing the traceability and transparency of the electoral process. One of the main benefits of this system is its ability to provide data visualisation at voting centres and stations, which allows for a better understanding of the electoral process. By considering geographical factors and the distance to urban centres, the system enables better distribution of voting centres across the country. The system records the exact location of all polling stations and provides key information such as road networks, distances from police stations, number of registered voters, distances between polling stations, nearest electoral office, access to people with disabilities, overnight storage facilities, and previous security and fraud incidents. Its database can be used to optimise the allocation of resources, reduce the risk of electoral fraud, and improve security measures. The system is an essential tool for electoral commissions and other organisations involved in managing electoral events.
Poll Workers Management System (PWMS)
An efficient and reliable system for managing poll worker profiles is crucial to ensure that the electoral process runs smoothly without disruptions. This system encompasses various verification stages, starting from the initial submission of applications by potential poll workers to their deployment on election day and beyond. The system enables electoral commissions to keep track of poll workers' expertise, education, years of experience, and languages spoken, thus ensuring that they are assigned to suitable positions that match their skills and competencies. It includes the feature of secure uploading and storing of necessary documents, such as identification cards, educational degrees, and certificates, to their profiles, for electoral officials to verify their qualifications. The system also includes features for verifying poll worker payments and generating end-of-work certificates to compensate them for their service. By streamlining the process of managing poll worker profiles, the system helps electoral commissions to optimise their resources and ensure that they have a sufficient number of trained personnel to operate polling stations on election day. This system plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth functioning of the electoral process and contribute to the credibility and legitimacy of electoral outcomes.
Electoral Translator app
The Electoral Translator is an application that translates electoral terms in English, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and Arabic. The general aim is to provide the international audience with the opportunity to understand and master the very specific language used in the field of democracy and elections, within the broader objective of making electoral processes around the world more inclusive and sustainable. The Electoral Translator serves all electoral stakeholders. including: electoral management bodies, competing political parties and candidates, media and journalists, civil society organisations dealing with election observation and voter education, security forces and institutions that deal with electoral dispute resolutions.
The Unified Social Media Monitoring and Early Warning System
The unified system is a comprehensive and efficient tool that provides an early warning and monitoring mechanism for incidents of violence and hate speech. This system records incidents from social media streams and from the field, providing necessary resources and skills to institutions and monitors on the ground. The system is designed to ensure sustainability, helping to create a peaceful environment and prevent conflicts. It serves as a database and repository for all information gathered and actions taken, thus allowing for historical tracking and analysis. The main dashboard of the system provides real-time updates on incident locations, using charts and maps to identify potential hotspots that require follow-up. The system also triggers alerts and notifies managers to ensure prompt action. This system is an all-in-one solution that helps institutions prevent and mitigate conflicts.
Electoral Results Aggregator (for EMBs and CSOs)
The Results Aggregator system comprises various components that work together to process and provide real-time updates of election results. The scheduler engine is responsible for initiating three communication channels that help in result processing, including a call to the electoral commission for result directory download, a call to the backend engine for PS results form data extraction, and a call to the backend engine for tally centre results form data extraction. The Results File Downloader provides the functionality to download, decompress result files from the electoral commission APIs, and persist relevant data to the database. The system's front-end web application is built in Angular 9 and comprises various features, including a dashboard showing total votes per candidate and percentage of total votes, web pages for entering and verifying PS and PC data, a login page, a mechanism to edit wrongly keyed-in data, and a webpage to compare PS and PC data on the constituency level. The system is designed with optimal performance in low-bandwidth locations, user-friendly interface, integrated with backend for real-time updates, and secured with endpoints to ensure authorized access to the services.
Voter List Digitalisation System
The digitalisation of voter lists is an essential process that involves converting voter registration information from paper format to a digital database system. This process enables electoral commissions and other stakeholders to easily manage voter data, reduce the risk of errors, and enhance the transparency of the electoral process. The voter list digitalisation system is built with customisable features in order to meet the specifications of any paper-based voter registration process and includes tools for data validation, cleaning, and integration with other electoral databases. By digitising voter lists, electoral commissions can efficiently manage voter data, identify and prevent fraudulent practices, and ensure that only eligible voters participate in the electoral process. This system ultimately provides greater transparency and accountability, which are fundamental elements for a free, fair, and credible electoral process.
In addition to the above we have developed the "Global Election Management System (GEMS), which assists in achieving the ultimate goal of making informed decisions in electoral management. This platform focuses on three key areas: planning, risk management, and communication with field personnel. It integrates various applications to organise and analyse data, providing visual dashboards for real-time insights that are made available via phone, computers or tablets. The platform includes:
GEMS Dashboard
The resilient Dashboard module empowers EMB users to create sophisticated visual representations and engage with dynamic maps, thereby elevating their data analysis and decision-making capabilities.
Warehouse Management System (WMS)
WMS is a comprehensive web-based application designed to streamline the oversight of warehouse activities, making it easier for election officials to manage and monitor election equipment and supplies.
GEMS RFID
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology offers a substantial enhancement in the identification and tracking of electoral packages stored in the warehouse. It facilitates effective inventory control and continuous monitoring of their movements. When integrated with our GMS system, it guarantees comprehensive tracking of all election packages, ensuring an elevated level of transparency and accountability throughout the entire process, from the warehouse to their ultimate destinations.
Geo Location Management System (GMS)
We employ GPS technology to ensure the punctual and precise transportation of materials from the warehouse to their assigned destinations. Through our GPS management system, the seamless integration of tracking confidential electoral packages, overseeing the transit procedure, and effectively handling logistics communication during transportation is designed to ensure the smooth execution of your election process.
GEMS Helpdesk
The effectiveness of assistance offered during Election Day hold significant importance. It is imperative for support personnel to efficiently provide solutions. GEMS Helpdesk streamlines this procedure by serving as a centralised web application that instantly records, classifies, prioritises, and monitors incidents throughout the entire electoral process.
GEMS Files
Discover the benefits of GEMS Files, an exceptionally secure document management platform hosted in the cloud, expertly customized to address the specific file-sharing needs of electoral processes. Safeguard, arrange, oversee, exchange, and retrieve files in various formats instantly, using any device, to ensure effortless cooperation and ease of use.
Poll Workers Management System (PWMS)
This module streamlines the task of generating staff assignments, enabling users to boost their productivity in staff allocation, optimize schedules, effortlessly distribute documents, and assign shifts.
