Technology can be used to assist an election management body (EMB) in the task of processing and verifying candidates' nominations.
In many jurisdictions, a candidate has to be nominated by a specified number of registered voters or by a specified office holder of a registered political party. An EMB can satisfy itself that a candidate's nomination has met the relevant criteria by using technology to assist in analysing the candidate's nomination.
In some cases it may be necessary to electronically capture the details submitted with a candidate's nomination. Where this is needed, it may be possible to ask the candidate and/or the nominators to supply the data electronically. An EMB could assist this process by supplying pre-formatted software for the data to be entered into. This could be distributed on disk, by email or via the internet.
Where data needs to be electronically captured but the candidate and/or the nominators are unable to supply electronic data, they will usually supply hardcopy nominations. These can be converted into electronic form if necessary either by having data-entry operators key the data into a database or spreadsheet, or by scanning the lists using an optical scanner equipped with intelligent character recognition software (see Optical Scanning Systems). Where there is a need to capture signatures, image scanning can also be used to electronically capture them.
Once data has been captured electronically, database or spreadsheet software can be used to process the nominations. The database or spreadsheet can then be used to generate reports or mail merge letters as needed (using a word processor or a database report).
Where details on nomination forms have to be verified, such as whether candidates or nominators are registered voters, or whether a person shown as a party official is appropriately registered for the purpose, relevant databases or spreadsheets can be consulted.
Where there is a requirement to verify signatures shown on nomination forms, technology can be used to assist this process where the EMB has access to a digitised record of voter signatures (such as may be contained in digitised voter records or a national identity database). For relatively small numbers of signatures, an operator would be able to manually compare signatures on nomination forms with signatures on digitised records displayed on screen or printed out. Where large numbers of signatures need to be checked, signature recognition technology might be used to verify that the identities submitted are genuine.
Once all nomination have been accepted, their details are usually required to be made public. Electronic capture of nomination information can expedite public disclosure. There are also many other advantages to be gained by the EMB by electronically capturing nomination details. For example, once electronically captured, nominations details in a database can be linked to other systems that require the same data, such as those used in ballot paper production, election results tallying, public notification and polling place management.
Where nomination details have to be made publicly available, this can be achieved by providing information in both hardcopy and electronic format. Details could be published on the internet to allow easy access for those with internet capability. It may be useful or desirable for the internet copy of the nominations details to be linked to the nominations database to allow for automatic updating of the internet version.
