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Election Tech Tuesday
This Election Data Dispatch series explores emerging issues in elections technology and their relationship to elections, the future of voting, and civic engagement in America.
Vermont Chooses New Software for Managing Elections
Vermont is spending $2.8 million on new software for its elections system, with 70 percent of the funding coming from the federal government through the Help America Vote Act. The software will allow local officials to transmit voter registration records to the state database and create systems for tracking absentee ballots, managing ballot production and candidate filing, and submitting campaign finance and lobbying disclosure forms electronically.
After the software is ready, the state plans to make candidate campaign finance records publicly available and searchable online. Future plans also include allowing voters to look up registration status and polling place locations, get candidate information, and check on the status of their absentee ballots. Pew’s Elections Performance Index evaluates states on the availability of five online election information lookup tools: polling place location, voter registration status, precinct level ballot information, absentee ballot status, and provisional ballot status. Pew’s 2012 assessment of the prevalence of these online voting information tools found that Vermont was one of only two states that offered none of these important online resources for voters.
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