Council Wins National Innovation Award
Published on:
14
May 2007
The use of digital technology in a community council election has won Clackmannanshire Council a national award for innovation.
Menstrie voters took part in a world first when they used a 'smart pen' on digital paper to make their choice of representative on the local community council in September's election. The technology provided results less than 2 minutes after the polling station closed with an error margin of 0.05%.
The project has now received national recognition having been named "Best Project Within an Organisation" at the Government Computing innovation awards.
There were 100 entries in this category, with Clackmannanshire Council being the only local authority to be shortlisted, alongside national organisations including the Royal Air Force and HM Revenue and Customs.
The awards were presented at a gala dinner at Madame Tussaud's, London, on 26th April 2007. Clackmannanshire's award was collected by Head of Business Improvement and Technology Services Barry Dickson and Project Manager Craig Machan on behalf of all who contributed to the project.
A delighted Barry said: "The success of the technology in what was a small scale local pilot, has now received national recognition. It should now surely merit further consideration in a larger scale election such as a local by-election. We proved that this existing technology can reduce both the time and costs associated with an election, while maintaining the reliability of results and confidence of voters."
The fact that Menstrie voters were presented with the traditional pen and ballot paper at the election helped to reduce concerns inherent with using new technology. The system also provided the safety net of a paper voting slip which could be manually counted. A survey of voters found that 93% trusted the e-voting system to have an accurate result while 96% said they would be happy to use digital pens at future elections.
Principal Administration Officer Rod Richardson added: "This e-voting method proved acceptable to voters and candidates, and it clearly has potential to become a sustainable and secure process."
Note to Editors
The Council's partners in this project were Nokia, who provided the digital pens, Swedish firm Anoto, specialists in the transfer of handwriting from paper to digital media, and mobility solution specialist Sysnet. Both Nokia and Anoto have used the project as a case study for innovative use of their technology.