Software Support, Website Hosting and Project Management for an Election Count Database Management System – Ecount.

The ‘E-Count’ Election Database Management Software package enables Returning Officers to organise and process data for a single poll or a number of different polls being held on the same day in a constituency or local electoral area (in the case of local elections). E-Count provides for the management of data at three distinct stages of an election poll – (i) Pre-Count stage (ii) Count stage and (iii) Post-Count stage, with users manually updating databases in each of the stages. E-Count also produces a range of reports to assist the Returning Officer at each stage. The E-Count User Manual – Returning Officer Edition – Appendix 1 – describes the outputs of the system at each of the three stages. The Pre-Count stage is largely concerned with the entry of data pertaining to the election. These include election details, constituency details, candidate details, polling buildings, polling stations, as well as details relating to postal and special voters. Also carried out in the pre-count menu part of the software, at the beginning of an election count, is the verification of ballot paper accounts process. This must be undertaken in advance of the counting of the ballot papers – it involves comparing the number of ballot papers found in each ballot box to the number of ballot papers recorded as having been placed in the ballot box. The Count stage is the main component of E-Count. It provides reports and advice to returning officers at each stage of the count on the next steps to be taken in accordance with count rules under the Proportional Representation Single Transferable Vote (PR-STV) system that applies in Ireland. For example, advice to distribute a surplus or to eliminate one or more candidates. The system also produces the public statements that are read out after each count, and produces ‘State of the Poll’ and ‘Result Sheet’ reports at any time during the count. Proposals to provide software support for the E-Count will require a full and detailed understanding of count rules, which are set out in the legislation for each type of election – these are attached as Appendix 2. In order to assist tenderers in this process, the Department’s ‘Guide to Ireland’s PR-STV Voting System’ is attached as Appendix 3. The Post-Count stage is largely concerned with the production of reports to meet reporting requirements in relation to the conduct of the poll(s). These reports include the following: postal and special voters, invalid ballot papers, declaration of result, result sheet, saved election expenses, lost expenses and election report. The contractor operates a website. The software itself along with a configuration file is provided by the software contractor on the website, and it is available to the returning officers and their staff via a login. Election count data is uploaded to a website by returning officers after the count is concluded. The data is downloaded by the Department for editing and processing into a format appropriate for publication. Configuration related information is uploaded to the website by the Department prior to the configuration files being downloaded by the returning officers. During election counts, there is a level of on-call support provided for the returning officers and for the Department also: This is typically for a range of hours over a weekend.