Roster Index Book

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2009

Alameda County developed a Roster Index Book imaging and recognition procedure to improve the election certification process. The Roster Index Book is used at 831 polling places to record the voters that came to that location to cast their vote. Each line in the Roster Index Book includes a bubble for staff use only, the voter’s address, a unique barcode to that voter, the voter’s party, a signature line, and the name of the voter. Each voter, after casting their ballot, must sign next to their name in the Roster Index Book. Once done, the Poll Worker will shade the bubble on that line, verifying that the process was completed. After each election, the number of voters in the Roster Index Book is reconciled, by precinct, against the number of votes recorded for that election. The old process required a manual scanning of bar codes and a visual audit for signatures for each valid voter. A new process was developed using ABBYY Optical Character Recognition software that allows the Registrar to utilize high speed scanners to perform the majority of the Roster Index Book reconciliation. This new process reduced the number of staff required for reconciliation and increased the efficiency of the election certification process.