Innovative BALLOTsafe Technology from Scytl and ES&S Revolutionizes Voting Process for Mississippi’s Military and Overseas Voters During March 2012 Primary

BALTIMORE, Md--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Through their successful technology deployment in Mississippi for the state’s March 13 Primary elections, Scytl and Election Systems & Software (ES&S) have demonstrated the many benefits that their groundbreaking BALLOTsafe™ technology collaboration has afforded their state and local election jurisdiction customers throughout the United States.

“We’re also proud to be able to offer our military and overseas voters with the flexibility and convenience of retrieving and marking their customized ballots on their iPads, tablets and computers before printing the prepared ballots and enveloped and putting them in the mail.”

Scytl and ES&S have been working together with election jurisdictions throughout the past year - including Mississippi - to develop and implement innovative, new solutions to help election officials meet the requirements of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act of 2009, a law enacted to help members of the military serving overseas and citizens who live abroad vote in U.S. elections.

“We’re really pleased by how much BALLOTsafe has improved our process for securely and efficiently delivering blank ballots - customized with the appropriate local, state and federal contests – to Mississippi’s military and overseas voters so that they have every available opportunity to receive their ballot, vote and return their ballot by U.S. mail prior to the election deadline,” said Charlie Case, Chief Information Officer for the Mississippi Secretary of State. “We’re also proud to be able to offer our military and overseas voters with the flexibility and convenience of retrieving and marking their customized ballots on their iPads, tablets and computers before printing the prepared ballots and enveloped and putting them in the mail.”

While secure online ballot delivery is conducted in other U.S. jurisdictions, Scytl and ES&S’ BALLOTsafe implementation in Mississippi offers many innovations, including the following:

Full Ballot Access for U.S. Military & Overseas Voters - All Mississippi military and overseas voters received access to their full local ballots with all local and statewide contests, in addition to the federal contests. This means that Mississippi absentee voters voted on the exact same contests as they would have if they were in polling places in their home jurisdictions on Election Day or voting a local absentee ballot. This is due to the ability of BALLOTsafe to draw on voter registration information through those states’ ES&S vote tabulation and statewide voter registration systems for ballot creation.
Blank Ballot Delivery & Marking via iPad, Tablet or Computer - With BALLOTsafe, voters can use their iPads or tablets in addition to their computers to download and mark their ballots. Then they can print their ballots and other voting materials including a pre-addressed, customized envelope for return ballot mailing and delivery to the appropriate local election office in the U.S.

“Through Scytl’s collaboration with ES&S, our Mississippi BALLOTsafe customer was able to electronically provide blank ballots for all military and overseas March Primary voters qualified and matched to their hometowns through the state’s voter registration system,” said David Campbell, General Manager, Electronic Voting Division for Scytl USA. “These Mississippi ballots were customized with not only federal contests, but state and local contests as well providing full ballot access to these voters.”

About Scytl (www.scytl.com) - Scytl is a worldwide leader in the development of secure technology solutions for the modernization of elections. The company’s solutions incorporate unique cryptographic protocols that enable Scytl to carry out a variety of election processes in a completely secure and auditable manner. Scytl’s election technology has been successfully deployed for United States overseas and military voters since 2008 and, in conjunction with the Federal Voting Assistance Program, Scytl's online ballot delivery technology for military and overseas voters was successfully used in 14 states during the November 2010 general elections enabling overseas voters to securely receive electronic ballots while providing election officials with administrative efficiency to manage the complex overseas voting processes. In addition to the deployment of Scytl’s technology in the United States, the company’s secure election solutions have been used in public elections by governments in the countries of the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia. Scytl is a portfolio company of leading international VC funds Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker. Scytl recently purchased SOE Software of Tampa, Florida, adding to its election product and service offerings. Scytl is based in Barcelona, Spain with its U.S. headquarters in Baltimore and offices in Florida, Toronto, New Delhi, Athens, Kiev and Singapore.

About Election Systems & Software (www.essvote.com) Election Systems & Software, LLC. (ES&S) is the world’s largest and most experienced provider of total election management solutions. For nearly 40 years, ES&S — as a company solely focused on elections and the leader in its industry — has grown to support a customer base of more than 4,372 jurisdictions throughout the world, and more than 290,000 election systems installed worldwide. ES&S is the world’s largest and most experienced provider of total election management solutions. For nearly 40 years, ES&S — as a company solely focused on elections and the leader in its industry — has grown to support a customer base of more than 4,372 jurisdictions throughout the world, and more than 290,000 election systems installed worldwide.

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