‘Democracy Works’ announces absentee ballot tracking pilot

Court Street-based Democracy Works (the parent of TurboVote) has announced a pilot program to track absentee ballots as they travel through the mail, according to Election Online.

After conducting a study of local election offices and watching them in action as they managed their absentee ballot programs in 2013 (report here), the organization put out a call to local election officials to help them work though a new tracking program.

From Election Online:

“We are very excited to be a part of this pilot program,” said Debbie Dent, chief deputy, Martin County, Fla. Elections Center. “More and more of our voters are opting to vote by mail and this program will be a great tool for both voters and election staff.”

In 2012 40 percent of Martin County voters cast a ballot by mail and Dent anticipates that number increasing with each passing election. Although Martin County did partner with an outside vendor to track the ballots in 2012, the vendor only allowed elections staff to track the ballots.

Details are still being worked out, but the basic idea is to use Intelligent Mail Barcodes (IMb), a system already used by USPS, to track ballots as they go to voters and as they come back. This should reduce call volume to election staff at the busiest time of year and also give voters more assurance that their ballot hasn’t been lost in the mail on either end. It also gives election officials a dashboard through which they can anticipate voter contact and see progress through the mail.

The timeline on the rollout from the link above shows Democracy Works customizing the system to individual election offices in the pilot this summer, which should put basically everyone through a run of the system this Fall, during the midterm elections.