Modern technology has again enabled the Electoral Commission (IEC) to deliver on its mandate – ensuring free and fair elections through transparency – and win international acclaim in the process.
On Thursday, 23 June 2011, the Chairperson Dr Brigalia Bam, and the Deputy Chairperson, Ms Thoko Mpumlwana, accompanied by the Chief Electoral Officer, Adv Pansy Tlakula, will receive the United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA) for Preventing and Combating Corruption in the Public Service on behalf of the Electoral Commission at an event in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.
South Africa is a first place winner in the competition for its innovative use of results slip scanning. A total of 36 public organisations worldwide will receive this prestigious award tomorrow on United Nations Public Service Day.
“Transparency is especially important to the IEC in ensuring that votes captured in the electronic Results System can be easily verified against the votes as reflected in the results slip signed by the presiding officers and political party representatives in each voting station,” said Dr Bam.
Once the votes have been counted and the results entered onto the results slips which are signed by the presiding officers and political party representatives in each voting station. From there it is taken to the municipal electoral offices where the results slips get scanned before it is verified by independent auditors.
The IEC introduced the process of scanning Results Slips during the 2009 National and Provincial Elections (NPE). More than 38 000 result slips were printed with barcodes and scanned at the results capturing sites in order to provide a visual image paired to an electronic result. The use of bar codes enabled the automation of linking the scanned image with an electronic record of the captured results.
The new functionality implemented for the NPE, also used for the 2011 Municipal Elections, was made available to all IEC staff at national office, nine provincial offices and more than 300 municipal offices. Innovation was achieved by using the latest image scanning and custom application development technologies to support the South African democratic process. The solution utilised a combination of new scanner hardware, integrated packaged and custom software to scan, index, store and display the result slips.
The IEC sees the following benefits from results slip scanning:
- Complete process transparency to all users – political parties, the media and other stakeholders – in its 10 results operation centres during the counting/results period, with little process impact or technical issues being experienced;
- Improved legitimacy and acceptability of election results;
- Improved accuracy and efficiency of the audit process with a record decrease in audit queries;
- Providing minimal impact on the parallel business processes or the business infrastructure; and
- Scanned electronic copy of all result slip will be preserved for far longer than paper copies.
‘The United Nations Public Service Awards is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service. It rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide.’
In November 2010, the IEC received an award from the Centre for Public Sector Innovation (CPSI) for its “innovative use of information communication technology for effective service delivery” for this process and in May 2011 was the first runner up at the All Africa Public Sector Innovation Awards (AAPSIA) in Kenya in the category “Innovative Service Delivery Improvements”.
For more information on the UNPSAs, please visit www.unpan.org/unpsa
For media interviews, please send an email to: spokesperson@elections.org.za
Enquiries:
Kate Bapela
Cell: 082 600 6386
