Toronto, May 14, 2014 – Scytl, the worldwide leader in secure online voting and election modernization, was selected by Northern Bruce Peninsula, Canada to provide secure Scytl Online Voting and Scytl Phone Voting to all of its voters. The October 2014 municipal election will be the first election where the new system and channels will be offered.
During the Voting Period from Monday, October 20th through Voting Day, Monday, October 27th, voters will be able to cast their votes by phone or from any device with an Internet connection. In addition, voters can choose the traditional voting channels to cast their votes at the Municipal Office during business hours from Monday, October 20th to Saturday, October 25th and then again on October 27th from 8:30 AM to 8:00 PM.
Between 1999 and 2010, vote-by-mail was the only option available to citizens of Northern Bruce Peninsula. In 2010, three of the municipalities in Bruce County offered Internet/Online voting for the first time. Due to its success, in the summer of 2013, the Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula Council decided to consider Internet/Online and Phone Voting and evaluated solutions from several providers. After a rigorous analysis, the Council selected Scytl.
“We are a rural community with a significant seasonal element. Vote by mail made voting more convenient and accessible, but it was extremely labor intensive for our staff. In the last election, votes came in fast and furiously and often required up to four staff members working several hours for several days to process. Now we are able to offer two secure voting channels with Scytl Online Voting and Scytl Phone Voting, which will take convenience and accessibility to a whole new level, and it will allow us to process the votes more efficiently at the close of voting,” says Mary Lynn Standen, Municipal Clerk, Northern Bruce Peninsula.
To prepare the community for the new voting options, the Clerk/Returning Officer has planned an extensive outreach program. “We will be reaching out to all ratepayer groups and community organizations to educate voters on the new options available to them and demonstrate how the system works. We will also post instructions on our website and be available to answer any questions voters have. Whenever you introduce a new way of doing something you are bound to have small issues crop up, but Scytl´s solutions are very intuitive so we expect voting in October to go quite smoothly overall,” Standen says.
“Northern Bruce Peninsula has been a pleasure to work with,” says Davi Bosch, Scytl Sales Director. “They have the best interests of their residents in mind and want to use technology to help make voting more convenient and accessible for their voters and less labor intensive for their staff. It’s always great to work with clients who are forward thinkers, which is why we are excited to partner with Northern Bruce Peninsula to bring secure Scytl Online and Phone Voting to their constituents.”
Scytl´s Online and Phone Voting solutions ensure voter privacy, ballot secrecy and the integrity and end-to-end security from the voter to the final tally. Scytl’s voting receipts, digital signatures and data encryption have been audited and certified by twelve countries and are used in 90% of all binding online elections worldwide. Scytl Online Voting has been successfully implemented in elections in Canada, the United States, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia and India among others.
About Scytl
Scytl is the global leader in secure election management and electronic voting solutions. Specializing in election modernization technologies, Scytl offers the first end-to-end election management and voting platform, providing the highest security and transparency standards currently available. Scytl has capitalized on its more than 18 years of research to develop election-specific cryptographic security technology protected by more than 40 international patents and patent applications, positioning Scytl as the company with the largest patent portfolio of the industry.
Scytl’s solutions have been successfully used in more than 35 countries throughout the world over the last 10 years, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Ecuador, France, Norway, Switzerland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UAE, India, Iceland and Australia. Scytl is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain with strategic offices in Canada, the United States, Peru and Greece as well as field offices in the UK, Ukraine, Malaysia, India and Brazil. www.scytl.com
Media Contacts
Maureen Szlemp, NA Marketing Manager, Scytl
+1 813 490 7134