VARs Help Get Out The Vote

There's an old ports adage: If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'. And, as history has demonstrated, the same thinking has often applied to politics. Fortunately, VARs and vendors are coming up with better solutions to detect phony signatures and otherwise enable government customers to run elections that are more efficient, accurate and open to all of their constituents. One unique quality about this market segment: It requires more people skills and training than the standard government customer job, given that the end users--voters--will be using unfamiliar technologies for the first time, on only one day.

"For voters, newer technology makes the elections easier, more reliable and more accessible," said Mac Beeson, regional account manager with Election Systems & Software, an Omaha, Neb.-based IT provider specializing in election solutions. "But it's not enough, however, to simply introduce new technologies with vendor partners. The challenges here require constant training and education to help both voters and election workers become familiar and comfortable with the new systems. So we've incorporated voter-education programs and computer-based training options for election workers as part of our overall offerings. The better prepared everyone is leading into election day, the smoother a process it will be."

While statistics about the election-systems market aren't tracked by major IT market research firms, there are an estimated 82 million registered U.S. voters who used different election equipment in November 2006 than they did six years earlier, according to Government Insights, which is owned by Framingham, Mass-based INC. The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 is pumping $325 million in funding to states to upgrade their systems, and mandates that one electronic voting unit be used within every polling place during a federal election. As a result, the number of counties that still use punch-card systems has declined from 566 in 2000 to 124 last year. And, since 2002, voter confidence in electronic voting systems has remained more than 80 percent, according to the Election Technology Council, a Houston-based association that represents voting system manufacturers.

"The use of electronic voting systems builds in the ability to offer ballots for all voters within a densely populated area and store multiple ballot styles," said David Beirne, executive director of the council. "The ability to collect electronic signatures and review the entire list of registered voters is also a reflection of the overall trend toward building greater efficiencies into the process."

Still, much of the Help America Vote Act-based purchase decisions have been made based on up-front costs only, not taking into consideration upkeep, operation, storage, transport and repair needs. VARs are now seeking to provide tools that improve performance with the longer-term view in mind.

Peladon Software, a San Diego-based solution provider, is now partnering with Parascript LLC, a Boulder, Colo.-based vendor, to provide signature verification and authentication tools for government customers overseeing elections. Peladon's DocXP document-processing system is used by government customers, as well as the banking industry, for a variety of purposes, including signature verification, data capture/classification and potential fraud cases. The system compares a signature with a valid signature already on file--from a previously written check, signature card or other resource. Parascript can compare, for example, the speed at which a signature is made, or the amount of pressure the signature-writer applies to the page. Automatic signature verification systems are in growing demand by municipal authorities, as county and municipal governments are facing an ever-increasing volume of absentee voter ballots. States such as Colorado, Arizona, Oregon and Washington allow some or all elections to be conducted entirely by mail, and this process requires vigorous signature verification.

"The manual verification process is slow and open to errors caused by fatigue or other human factors," said Yuri Prizemin, director of product marketing at Parascript, which processes more than 75 billion imaged documents a year. "Further, election workers are not considered to be handwriting experts to reliably detect fraud. They need automation tools to help them in this process. Today, the technology is available to detect random and skilled forgeries with an accuracy that not only equals, but far exceeds, visual verification. This performance breakthrough allows election workers to automatically process up to 99 percent of suspects, reducing the number of signatures that have to be manually reviewed to as low as 1 percent."

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