Matthijs Schippers gave a presentation at the ICPS International Electoral Affairs Symposium in Nairobi, Kenya on how technology can help build confidence and trust in electoral processes. He discussed how both good technology and process improvements are needed for successful elections. As an example, he described Smartmatic's digital pen technology, which allows polling stations to securely capture, transmit, and validate election results in real-time, eliminating errors or potential manipulation compared to traditional post-election result collection methods. The digital pen maintains both physical and digital copies of results for transparency.

1. ICPS International Electoral Affairs Symposium
Nairobi, Kenya
25/6/2014 – 27/6/2014
“Will technology help in building confidence and trust?”
Thank you for your kind introduction.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
It’s a privilege for Smartmatic to have received 2 speaker slots at the 8th International
Electoral Affairs Symposium of 2014.
In addition to this afternoon’s talk I also will try to do my very best not to bore you with
another talk tomorrow morning.
I like to thank the ICPS for organising this event, but also the Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission of Kenya for co-organising and hosting this gathering of some
of the finest international professionals in the field of managing elections in such a
stimulating and beautiful environment, here in Kenya on the African continent, the
birthplace of humanity, where so much democratic progress and electoral reform are
taking place.
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2. Matthijs Schippers
VP sales Western Europe
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
My name is Matthijs Schippers and I joined Smartmatic’s Amsterdam EMEA head office
supporting customers for the Western Europe region as of the 1st
of January this year.
But based on my experience with another election systems company gained over a
period of 10 years I regard myself as a relatively seasoned veteran in the industry.
Amsterdam is the capitol of the Netherlands and for those people in the audience that
know little about the Netherlands, perhaps you may have heard about Holland or you
may have seen our team score a goal or 2 at the FIFA World cup in Brasil.
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3. Will technology help in building confidence
and trust?
Matthijs Schippers
VP sales Western Europe
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Today and tomorrow morning I want to talk about the question:
Will technology help in building confidence
and trust in the electoral processes?
The answer to this question is a definitive big yes.
Of course, what else could you have expected to hear from a manufacturer of election
systems.
But in the past and also even in the very recent past we have witnessed many projects
in different countries where the use of technology has resulted in disappointing or even
poor results.
In order to explain and understand why in some cases technology will help or will not
help in building confidence and trust I need to explain a little bit about Smartmatic and
our view on elections and electoral solutions.
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4. 4
Belmon63
700,000
polling
stations
installed
Over
175,000
voting
machines
deployed
100%
successful
elections
Over
160
million voter
identities, incl.
biometrics,
processed
220,000
temporary
local jobs
created
2.3
billion votes
cast and
counted
Our Achievements
Our achievements as a company in the field of electoral solutions are unprecedented.
2.3 billion votes in total have been cast on and counted by over 175,000 Smartmatic
voting systems, which were deployed in multiple election cycles for which some
700,000 different polling stations had to be set up and dismantled.
Our systems also have processed identities of some 160 million voters, including one or
more forms of biometrics.
In order to achieve this we have worldwide some 700 professionals working every day
building on furthering our excellence and we also created some 220,000 temporary
jobs.
And this is all in pursuit of the one most important common goal and that is to support
100% successful election.
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The complete industry offers ‘Technology’ as the only
answer for a successful election…
But …..
Technology
Voting technology providers
That the industry offers Technology as the only answer for successful elections, but ……
I’m afraid and also somewhat ashamed to admit that industry has not always offered
the right technology. Needless to say that in these instances as a result you won’t get a
successful outcome or in the best case a marginal improvement which doesn’t come
near to the expectations and promises at the time the technologies were offered and
procured.
In all fairness to the industry, in most cases industry also offered technology with good
intrinsic quality, but even then not all projects turned out to be a success.
For instance good technology will improve ballot counting accuracy and integrity, but
even then things can go wrong because of poor planning and bad execution of the
election processes and procedures.
The mirror image of this observation can be found when not introducing technology at
all.
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… while NGOs and Multilaterals offer assistance
for Process Improvement as the answer
But …..
Process
Improvement
Other NGOs
IFES
UNDP
This is the case when improvements in electoral processes are being sought by funding
initiatives and projects that only aim at process or procedure improvements.
These initiatives are often done with the involvement of NGO’s
Process improvement are always valuable, but unintended mistakes or fraud will not
always be prevented without the use of the right technology.
And I don’t have to spell out what fraud will do with confidence and trust in the
electoral process.
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The combination of Good Technology and
Process Improvement is needed for
Successful elections
Good
Technology
Process
Improvement
So the logic conclusion is that if you want to have successful elections you need to
combine good technology with process improvement, and that's exactly what
Smartmatic offers to the market.
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We create Technology and Services to
make governments more efficient and
transparent…
What We Do
What we do comes basically down to creating Technology and services that allows
governments to conduct their elections more efficient, accurate and transparent.
And in doing so, we help to build the confidence and trust in the electoral processes.
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9. Smartmatic covers the whole spectrum
of election processes…
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We do not limit our selves to a single aspect, but in stead we cover the whole spectrum
of election processes…
and this unique perspective allows us to develop systems in a more comprehensive way
and integrate that with election support services.
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Elections Process Map
The whole spectrum stretches from the pre election, election and post election phase.
And all different steps in the electoral process…..
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Elections Process Map in Detail
….. break down in more granulated tasks or detailed sub processes.
It’s beyond the scope of this presentation to run in detail through all these different
processes.
I like to pick 2 aspects for today’s and tomorrow’s presentations to explain the
importance of combining good technology with process improvement in order to
improve trust and confidence in the electoral process.
These 2 areas also happen to have a decisive impact on the level of trust and confidence
in elections:
•Voter registration
AND
•Processing the votes into results
I will save the voter registration for tomorrow’s presentation.
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Processing votes into results
Counting Results
collection
Consolidation Proclamation
Processing the votes into results encompasses starts right after the counting of the
ballots and spans all the way to the proclamation of the winners.
In most elections it is this phase that hides some of the most critical activities of Election
Day.
The whole process from opening the polls until closing the polls in the polling place is
subject to public scrutiny and witnessing.
But as soon as the counting is done, the count reports have to be returned at a central
location and this may take any time from 15 minutes to a couple of hours or in some
geographical dispersed situations a full day or even more.
This introduces a great risk for fraud because a motivated attacker may take advantage
of the provided window of opportunity between the moment of signing the count
reports and the consolidation to the proclamation of the results.
By adding the use of right technology to good procedures and best practices in the
polling places we can also eliminate this risk.
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Smartmatic digital pen
The introduction of Smartmatic’s digital pen is most certainly a very good sample for a
solution to close this gap.
Our digital pen allows to capture, process and transmit the results of the polling places
to consolidation centers to generate the election results in a quickly and accurately
manner, helping to strengthen the transparency of the electoral process.
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What is the digital pen?
A ballpoint
A camera
A data processor
A blue tooth transmitter
What is it ?
Well, it’s a very intelligent pen that you can use as a normal pen.
But it also has a battery operated camera, data processor with some intelligence and
blue tooth transmitter on board.
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What can you do with the digital pen?
Fill out the count reports
Sign the close poll statements
Capture & retain data in digital format
Transfer data wireless to devices
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How does it work?
POLLING STATION
Preparation of count
report using Digital
Pen
Report
transmission
Report unique identifier + polling location info
Number of votes per candidate/party
Valid votes
Rejected votes
Blank votes
Null votes
Additional comments and observations.
Signature of polling officials
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How does it work?
POLLING STATION
Preparation of count
report using Digital
Pen
Report
transmission
Reception of reports /
Validation of business
rules on the report
Aggregation of
results
Verification process
/Discrepancy resolution
/Final certification
Proclamation
RESULTS VERIFICATON & PROCESSING CENTER
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What are the benefits?
Maintains physical & digital copies
Eliminates time lag result collection
Reliable & accurate delivery of results
Detects unintentional errors
Adds ‘how’ & ‘when’ results were filled
Recovers genuine results from manipulations
CANDIDATE 1 020
CANDIDATE 2 010
CANDIDATE 3 015
CANDIDATE 4 015
CANDIDATE 5 040
CANDIDATE 6 090
VALID VOTES 190
BLANK VOTES 040
NULL VOTES 050
TOTAL VOTES 280
CANDIDATE 1 020
CANDIDATE 2 010
CANDIDATE 3 015
CANDIDATE 4 015
CANDIDATE 5 040
CANDIDATE 6 010
VALID VOTES 110
BLANK VOTES 040
NULL VOTES 050
TOTAL VOTES 200
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In summary
Maintains physical & digital copies
Eliminates time lag result collection
Reliable & accurate delivery of results
Detects unintentional errors
Adds ‘how’ & ‘when’ results were filled
Recovers genuine results from manipulations
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This brings me to the end of the presentation.
With this example I have demonstrated that the improvement of
processes and procedures is not enough to fully guarantee that an
accurate and transparent counted result in a polling place is processed in
the tallied results.
The use of Smartmatic’s digital pen technology can really boost the
confidence in the proclaimed tallied results.
The tallied results can be announced fast, free from errors and free from
potential manipulations.
And in this way technology in combination with process improvements
can really help you in building confidence and trust in your electoral
process.
When you like to see how this pen actually works, please visit our stand
for a life demo.
Thank you for your attention.