Independent Electoral Commission: Technology and Business Strategy

Accenture was commissioned by the IEC to develop and implement the IT infrastructure for the 2004 voting process. Various enhancement projects were developed to facilitate the voter registration, voting and results phases of the voting process, as well as for the operation centres.

Now an established organisation, the IEC faced a new set of challenges with delivering the 2004 elections:

• Greater professionalism, transparency and accountability in delivering cost-effective elections.
  
  
• Re-delimitation of the country into voting districts to improve access to polling stations.
  
  
• Increasing voter participation.
  
  
• Conducting ongoing and specific registration activities to grow the existing voters' roll.
  
  
• Enhancing the information technology (IT) infrastructure.
  
  
• Increasing the use of emerging technologies to improve efficiency.
  
  
• Counting, verification and announcing of results within seven days.

As the IEC's IT partner, Accenture assisted with the planning, design, implementation, enhancement and support of the IT infrastructure required to deliver the 2004 elections.

Voter Registration
The same barcode-scanning technology used in 1999 and 2000 was reused to register over 3 million additional voters over two voter registration weekends. The scanners scan the bar codes associated with voting district maps and the bar codes in voters' identity documents. Accenture enhanced both the procedures and technology involved in uploading the information from around the country and ensured that more than 30,000 files (with over 3.4 million records) were processed over five working days for each of the registration weekends—a task that took more than nine working days in 1999. The voters' roll currently contains over 20 million voters of South Africa's estimated 27 million eligible voters.

IT Infrastructure
Good technology decisions made and implemented in 1999 meant that the wide area network (WAN) developed for the 1999 elections was also used to deliver the 2000 local government elections as well as the 2004 elections. The very-small-aperture-terminal (VSAT) satellite network implemented, allows the IEC to increase or decrease the number of sites and to relocate sites.

The IEC made effective use of the WAN throughout the preparation phases and run-up to, as well as during, the elections.

Business Applications
Accenture conducted a number of enhancement projects to ensure that the Web-based applications used to prepare for and manage the elections met the IEC's current requirements. All these applications have been integrated to allow for reporting on election readiness across functional areas. The applications are used by about 1,000 IEC staff country-wide.

A new Web-based result system was also developed to support the IEC's new result capturing business processes, and was built on the latest Microsoft .Net Architecture and Microsoft .Net Application blocks.

In addition, a Data Warehouse solution was developed by Accenture, consisting of a custom developed internet portal (Business Intelligence Portal) through which key strategic data warehouse reports were available relating to each of the key functional areas considered crucial to the running of the 2004 elections. The analytical and comparative capabilities of the reports, showing both current and historical information, supported senior IEC officials in their decision making prior to and during the elections.

Operation Centres
A 12,000-square-metre National Operation Centre (NOC), operating on three floors, was established to allow the IEC to monitor all processes. Using over 350 PCs the media, political parties and IEC staff could access the latest result reports from the NOC application and database servers.

The IEC operational area at the NOC focused on dealing with all issues reported from the ground including any logistical, legal or results related problems. Accenture developed a web-based issue tracker tool for the IEC to log, assign and resolve issues per location. More than 770 issues were logged over five days, of which 66 percent were logged on election day. About 30 percent of the calls were referred to the legal and party liaison group for resolution.

Nine provincial operation centres (POCs) were also established in each of the provinces. These sites were also connected to the IEC WAN as well as the PABX and voice infrastructures.

Voting and Results
Unlike the centralised capturing process used in 1999, the IEC adopted a decentralised approach for the 2004 elections which allowed the results to be captured and audited on the system at the municipal offices. The system only reported on voting districts with audited results.

The IEC was able to announce the election results three days after the poll, with 90 percent of the results captured within the first 24 hours and 99 percent of the results captured by the second day. In 1999 the results were only announced after six days.

Accenture was responsible for the development of the Web-based Result system used for the 2004 election. The system, developed on the latest Microsoft .Net technology, also included the complex seat calculation and candidate assignment functionality. Evidence of the high quality the system delivered is the fact that not one functional call was received or bug was identified with the system.

Mobile Technology
To improve the overall efficiency of their processes and to provide multiple service channels to both its employees and the public, the IEC has implemented leading-edge Short Message Service (SMS). The SMS and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) services provided included the following:

• Voters could obtain voter registration information using their mobile phone simply by sending an SMS with their 13-digit identity number. The voters would then receive a reply SMS containing information about their voter status and where they were registered to vote. Over 34,000 SMSs were received over the last registration weekend wih a peak of 15,495 SMSs in one hour just after a South African Broadcasting Corporation news announcement.
  
  
• On election day, the IEC internally made use of SMS services to allow presiding officers to communicate voting station status as well as issues to head office and provincial offices. This information was centrally gathered and reported via a Web-based front-end tool ensuring problem areas could be immediately identified. Over 12,000 SMSs were received from presiding officers on election day as opposed to them using alternative reporting methods. This freed up operation centre personnel at the head office and the provinces to handle more critical telephonic issues.
  
  
• The public SMS service was expanded during the 2004 election period to provide the public with news headlines and election results. The public could obtain national election results by sending an SMS with key words.
  
  
• The SMS services were also used by the result system to communicate edit window periods to municipal offices and by the communication department to send bulk SMSs to the media.

Public Website
During the voter registration weekends the IEC's public website received almost 250,000 hits. Voters could check their registration status online and get general information about the voting process.

During the election period, the site handled between 40 and 160 hits a second during peak sessions and 7.5 million hits over four days.

The 2004 general election was declared free and fair and deemed a success by the public, media and political parties.

In addition to the election successes, the IEC project:

• Increased the national common voters' roll with an additional 2.5 million eligible voters.
  
  
• Provided multiple interaction channels for citizens (Internet, call centre, SMS services).
  
  
• Reduced cost by re-using already implemented technology and infrastructure.
  
  
• Improved the IT infrastructure and communication capabilities across the country and especially to rural communities.
  
  
• Increased the computer literacy of IEC staff throughout the country.
  
  
• Set an example for other developing countries by announcing the election results three days after the polls closed.

Chief Electoral Officer Pansy Tlakula said the election "has come and gone without major glitches. Although we are a developing nation, we have come of age as far as election management is concerned."