Election Virtual Dashboard and Command Center

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

The 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic presented many challenges in the preparation and support of the November 3, 2020 Presidential General Election. Election night support technical support for large high-profile elections had always been provided onsite by the Department of Innovation and Technology (IT). IT large election support typically required IT staff to be onsite located in a central election night command center format. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic having staff onsite sitting in close-proximity made the standard large election night support model not feasible.The IT election support team worked together to implement a virtual election night command center with the use of existing departmental infrastructure and without the need to develop customized software applications. The virtual election night command center was comprised of the following:• Concurrent MS Teams Meetings sharing the following monitoring dashboards:o Google Analyticso Cyber Security o Network Monitoringo ROV Server Diagnostics• WordPress Intranet Website The virtual command center provided IT Management and key election support staff with “real-time” access to diagnostic dashboards via MS Team meeting links available on an internal WordPress website and election staff contact and election hardware/software infrastructure lists. The use of Microsoft 365 and open source website development platform (WordPress) allowed San Bernardino county IT staff to implement a virtual dashboard solution in record time. Most importantly, it prioritized the safety of San Bernardino County IT staff and their families, while continuing to maintain excellent election night support for our Registrar of Voters election team.