Deloitte has named Dominion to both the Technology Fast 500™ and Fast 50™ lists (for the third and fifth year, respectively), recognizing our success as one of the fastest-growing technology, media, and telecommunications companies in the United States and Canada.

Since first being named to the Fast 50™ list in 2009, which celebrates technological innovation, entrepreneurship, rapid growth, and leadership, Dominion’s commitment to its customers, service and technology innovation has helped the company’s customer-base grow exponentially.  

“We are thrilled to be once again recognized as a Fast 50™ and Fast 500™ company,” said CEO John Poulos. “Together with our customers, we work every day to meet the needs of tomorrow, to make elections more secure, more effective, and more accessible. Our pursuit of ongoing innovation is fueled by the collaborative efforts of our employees and the wisdom of our customers. It’s what keeps us ahead of the curve.”

“Fast 50 companies are entrepreneurial, innovate and demonstrate leadership,” said Pascal Lamoureux, Partner and Leader for Deloitte’s Fast 50™ program. “Their commitment and achievements are critical to the growth of the Canadian technology sector.”

About Deloitte’s 2014 Technology Fast 500™

Technology Fast 500, conducted by Deloitte & Touche LLP, provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies – both public and private - in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2009 to 2013.

About Dominion Voting

In today’s election market, Dominion Voting Systems sets itself apart with a commitment to customer service and a superior use of technology to provide our customers with the best tools possible to solve their election challenges. Dominion has distinguished itself by pursuing excellence in customer service by implementing a technical culture focused on achieving the highest levels of accuracy, reliability and transparency. Dominion is committed to producing the highest quality, most innovative election solutions and delivering the very best in professional and support services to over 1200 customers representing jurisdictions all over the world. 

With a population of roughly 700,000 people, the City of Winnipeg is the capital and the largest city in the province of Manitoba, Canada. On October 22, 2014, the 14th council of the City of Winnipeg was elected for the 2014-2018 term. Dominion Voting was pleased to once again partner with the City of Winnipeg to successfully deliver their 2014 municipal election. In many ways, the 2014 civic election in Winnipeg heralded several exciting firsts for the city. A total of 30,619 people voted at the advance polls, setting a record level of advance participation, beating the previous record from 2010. The election concluded with 235,455 votes cast, the highest number of votes ever cast in a municipal election in Winnipeg. Overall voter turnout was also the highest it has reached in a decade, at 50.23%, making it all the more important for the City to deliver a flawless election. Dominion is proud to have supported the City of Winnipeg, a long-time customer, and contributed to the success of this important event.

The City of Winnipeg was an early adopter of voting technology. Wanting to increase accuracy, efficiency and transparency in the electoral process, in 2009 the City made a long term investment in Dominion’s Democracy Suite system, replacing their 1994-era technology. For their 2014 election, the City deployed 230 Dominion ImageCast Precinct tabulators to every polling location, and also made assistive voting devices available to voters with accessibility needs. The completely turnkey voting system allowed the City of Winnipeg to capture voter intentions quickly and accurately, and the integrated results tally and reporting functionality made sharing results with the public and the media efficient and timely.

The City of Winnipeg wanted to provide the electors with many options for voting to make the process convenient, simple, and accessible. Advance voting took place over several weeks at Winnipeg City Hall, as well as several other community locations, including shopping centres, universities and colleges leading up to Election Day. Advance voting opportunities were also available in 178 senior’s residences, personal care homes, developmental centres and hospitals.

In addition to providing ample voting opportunities, the City of Winnipeg also utilized Dominion’s Mobile Ballot Printing system to offer 29 convenient “Vote Anywhere” city-wide locations, giving people the opportunity to cast ballots at any polling station regardless of their home ward and school division. Using Dominion’s Mobile Ballot Printing system, election officials were able to quickly look up a voter’s polling subdivision, and print the correct ballot style on the spot, saving the City the additional printing costs associated with having to provide multiple ballot styles to every “Vote Anywhere” location.

At the close of voting on Election Day, results from all of the City’s voting opportunities (advance polls, mail-in ballots, and Election Day polls) were quickly compiled, so that the highly anticipated unofficial election results were made available without delay, within two hours of close of polls. Dominion also worked with the City to customize their online results display, providing an attractive and user-friendly interface for up-to-the-minute results reporting for the public.

Dominion Voting looks forward to continuing to support the City of Winnipeg’s democratic process, and working with the City to make their elections more efficient, secure, and accessible. 

Photo: Dominion worked with the City of Winnipeg to customize their online results display

Dominion Voting was proud to be partnering with Elections Alberta for the first time this past October to deliver advance voting tabulation services for four by-elections in the province. Elections Alberta used Dominion’s ImageCast Precinct tabulator as the main polling place tabulator, as well as the ImageCast Evolution for voters with accessibility needs.

By-elections were held in four ridings across the province, in Calgary-Foothills, Calgary-West, Calgary-Elbow and Edmonton-Whitemud. Four days of advance voting took place from October 22nd – 25th and Election Day was on October 27th. Elections Alberta staff were trained by Dominion on how to operate the tabulators, and were provided election support for logic and accuracy testing, advance voting opportunities and Election Day. 

Before voting began, Elections Alberta invited members of the accessibility community to preview and test the ImageCast Evolution. It was met with great enthusiasm, and offered the option for voters with accessibility needs to vote completely independently and privately. 

In past elections, it often took hours to handcount and tally results, but at the close of polls on Election Night this time, Elections Alberta staff were able to quickly and accurately tally the results from the advance polls. A total of 9,698 ballots were cast by electors during the four days of Advance Poll voting in the four electoral divisions, and overall voter turnout hovered between 36-40% across the four ridings. While voter turnout was lower than typical general elections, it was significantly higher than the two federal by-elections held in June in Alberta. 

A full report on the by-election is expected to be published in the coming months. Elections Alberta is keen to continue leveraging technology in modernizing the voting process, and Dominion Voting looks forward to supporting this goal.

Photo credit: CTV News Edmonton. http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.2059663

On Monday, October 27th, millions of voters headed to the polls in municipalities across Ontario. Dominion Voting was proud to support nearly 100 customers across the province in holding another round of successful municipal elections. Dominion’s customers ranged from the smaller vote-by-mail communities of Georgian Bay and North Kawartha, to the much larger municipalities of Ottawa, Hamilton, Vaughan, and Kitchener. In addition to paper ballot tabulation, Dominion provided a combination of internet and/or telephone voting services to 23 municipalities, enabling nearly 850,000 eligible voters to cast their ballot remotely. Over 2,000 vote tabulators were deployed across the province, and Dominion personnel were available in the field and at our Command Center to provide timely support wherever needed. 

This year saw several firsts for Dominion’s customers, including ten municipalities that successfully held elections using only internet and/or telephone voting. One such example is the Town of Meaford, a mixed urban and rural municipality on the southern shore of Georgian Bay. This was the first time since amalgamation that Meaford used a system other than vote-by-mail. They chose internet and telephone voting for its convenience and accessibility, and entrusted Dominion with helping them deliver their first ever fully electronic election. The Town also invested in community engagement, and held a number of puplic information sessions with various community groups to spread the word about the new voting methods. Electors could vote online or by telephone from anywhere and at any time during their 11-day voting period. As of Election Day morning, more than 40% of eligible electors in Meaford had already cast their ballots using either the internet or telephone, and by the end of Election Day, that number had climbed to 50%.

“We selected Dominion after a competitive RFP process. They demonstrated that their voting system meets the requirements of the Municipal Elections Act and its integration with other voter list management software was an asset. The system worked as planned with no issues. The audit log provides peace of mind and the Dominion team was responsive to our needs and wants ensuring success on Election Day.” - Robert Tremblay, Director of Legislative Services/Clerk, Town of Meaford

Several other municipalities in Ontario used Dominion’s internet and/or telephone voting services in addition to paper ballot tabulation, hoping to increase voter participation, accessibility and convenience by offering alternative voting methods. They were met with a great public response. In the municipality of Chatham-Kent, over 9,000 people voted at the advance polls, with over 7,000 of those votes registered over the internet. This is up from only 3,007 advance votes cast in 2010. Voters were encouraged at how simple, secure and easy the process to vote was, with one voter posting online that it only took 3.5 minutes to vote from the comfort of their home. The city of Guelph also offered internet voting as an advance vote option for the first time this year, and saw significant increases in their advance voter turnout. Nearly 11,000 out of almost 14,000 advance votes were cast online, and overall voter turnout increased from 33.9% in 2010 to 44.96% in 2014. In Burlington, advance voter turnout was nearly double compared to 2010 numbers, with a total of 11,072 advance votes cast, including 8,000 votes cast online. 

All three of these municipalities used a combination of online and paper ballots provided by Dominion, and were be able to tally results on election night quickly and seamlessly using Dominion’s robust and fully integrated Democracy Suite Election Management System. These municipalities also took advantage of Dominion’s integrated internet graphical results display, which allowed them to update results in real-time on Election Night. Across the province, results streamed in steadily after the close of polls, with many municipalities releasing full unofficial results within 30 minutes of close of polls. Dominion once again delivered compliant, efficient and reliable elections solutions for the province’s municipalities, and is proud to be facilitating the exercise of citizens' democratic franchise in Ontario for now over 10 years.

Photo: One of Dominion's ImageCast Precinct vote tabulators in the City of Cambridge.

During an official visit to the Balkans in early September 2014, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird had the opportunity to visit Dominion Voting’s Belgrade offices on September 1st. Along with Canadian Ambassador to Serbia Roman Waschuk, Minister Baird heard about the successful technological partnership between Canada and Serbia. They were given a demonstration of Dominion Voting’s ImageCast Evolution with Dual Display, ImageCast Precinct and ImageCast Central tabulators, and got a sneak peek at some of our latest innovations. This year marks the 10-year anniversary of Dominion Voting’s engineering offices in Belgrade.

A key pillar of Canada's current foreign policy is support to governance and democracy throughout the world. The ability to deliver timely and accurate results is critical to the success of voting processes at home and abroad. In Canada, Dominion works closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development as a tangible example to the international community of Canadian governance and election technology expertise.

In the photo, Dominion’s VP of Product Management and General Manager, Europe, Goran Obradovic, shows Minister Baird an ImageCast ballot and voting on the ImageCast Evolution. 

Photo credit: Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. 

Over the past few general elections, the province of Ontario has made great progress in its approach to greater accessibility, from closed-captioning and descriptive video, to special ballots and mobile voting locations. The accessibility of the electoral process is crucial to ensure that all voters are able to fully participate and exercise their democratic right to vote privately, independently and with dignity. Dominion Voting is proud to be Elections Ontario’s partner of choice in providing assistive voting technology for the province of Ontario.

Before deploying Dominion’s technology in the field, Elections Ontario consulted with various members of the disability community, and conducted a pilot program in 2009 using Dominion’s ImageCast Precinct optical scan tabulator with accessible voting. Dominion’s technology meets the requirements of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and allows voters marking their ballot by hand and voters that require the assistive devices to process their ballots privately and in confidence.  The pilot project was a success, and Elections Ontario has subsequently used Dominion’s voting technology for both the 2011 and 2014 general elections. 

In June 2014, Dominion Voting deployed 144 ImageCast Precinct tabulators with Ballot Marking Device add-ons in all Returning and Satellite Offices across Ontario. Dominion Voting also provided training, election programming, ballot production, and on-site support services for Elections Ontario. 

Voters who chose to use the accessible voting feature had the option of navigating their audio ballot in either English or French, and using one of three assistive input devices. Voters with limited or no vision could mark and generate a ballot by listening to audio commands and using an Audio Tactile Interface (also known as the ATI). Voters with mobility or dexterity challenges could listen to audio instructions and use paddle buttons or the sip and puff device to navigate through their ballot. 

In addition to enhanced accessibility, Ontario has benefited from other advantages of Dominion’s technology, including automated ballot tabulation to simplify the counting process, and digital ballot imaging. Every ballot scanned on the ImageCast Precinct is imaged and appended with Dominion’s patented AuditMark®, a digital record of how that ballot was interpreted by the tabulator. Dominion’s Dual Threshold Technology was also useful in helping to ensure clear voter intent when accepting ballots. If ballots were blank, had unclear vote marks, or overvoted contests, voters were given an error message and an opportunity to correct their ballot or cast it as is. 

One of Elections Ontario’s goals is to serve electors in a modern, responsive and efficient manner, and ensure that the process is transparent and impartial. The ImageCast Precinct tabulator provided the province with an all-in-one automated ballot counting device which produced results reports within a few minutes of close of polls on election night. Most importantly, the ImageCast Precinct with Ballot Marking Device provided the opportunity for all Ontarians, with or without accessibility needs, the ability to vote independently and privately. Dominion looks forward to continuing our partnership with Elections Ontario and working towards the goal of greater accessibility for all.

In 2012, Guernsey County began searching for new election automation solutions for increased accuracy, efficiency and accountability. Dominion Voting is proud to have been selected as their elections partner of choice, and pleased to announce that Guernsey County, the first county in Ohio to use Dominion’s Democracy Suite® voting system, had a successful first deployment of their new election technology on May 6, 2014 for the county primary.

Guernsey County’s new digital optical scan voting system includes the ImageCast® Evolution, Dominion’s all-in-one universal scan tabulator and ballot marking device, and the ImageCast® Central for absentee ballots. Both the ImageCast® Evolution and the ImageCast® Central are powered by the Democracy Suite® Election Management System, Dominion’s robust and secure suite of integrated software applications to perform all pre- and post-election tasks.

In addition to its leading-edge technology, Dominion Voting also provided Guernsey County with assistance in training poll workers, database programming, technical support, testing and trouble-shooting, as part of the innovative customized Managed Service Plan pricing model that Guernsey County selected.

Certified for use in the state of Ohio, the ImageCast® Evolution is the only EAC certified digital optical scan voting device that offers ballot-marking capabilities all in one device. Guernsey County used 40 ImageCast® Evolution units in their recent primary election in 35 precincts, replacing 162 of their previous TSX touch screen voting units.

Despite changing voting methodologies (from touch screen to paper based optical scan), the Guernsey County election officials experienced minimal calls from voters and poll workers alike, demonstrating the engineered simplicity of Dominion’s Democracy Suite® system. At the end of Election Day, Guernsey County was one of the first counties to report results in the state.

Dominion Voting looks forward to furthering our relationship with the Guernsey County Board of Elections, and will continue to work to make their county the standard for exceptional election management in the State of Ohio.

Please contact Mark Beckstrand, Ohio Regional Sales Manager at (828) 301-7670 or mark.beckstrand@dominionvoting.com  with any questions about our products, services, pricing, or the Managed Service Plan options.

Dominion Voting is pleased to announce that Hamilton County, the first county in Tennessee to use Dominion’s Democracy Suite® system, had a successful initial deployment of their new election technology on May 6, 2014 for the County Primary. Hamilton County purchased a new, fully integrated, Democracy Suite® voting system from Dominion in late 2013 to replace their Premier AVOS system, purchased in 1998. 

Hamilton County’s new paper-ballot based system is composed of the ImageCast® Precinct optical scan tabulator, the ImageCast® Evolution universal, all-in-one optical scan tabulator and ballot marking device, and the ImageCast® Central system for absentee ballots. All of these scanners are powered by the Democracy Suite® Election Management System, a robust and secure suite of integrated software applications to perform all pre- and post-election tasks.

Hamilton County has 130 precincts, and a little over 220,000 registered voters. They used 130 ImageCast® Precinct units on Election Day, and 10 ImageCast® Evolution for early voting. 

On Election Day, results were uploaded, tallied and reported by 9:35pm. Not only was Hamilton County one of the first counties in the state to report, but they were the first large jurisdiction to report.

Dominion is very pleased to be the vendor of choice for Hamilton County, and looks forward to supporting many more successful elections in the coming months and years.

Image at left: Hamilton County prepares for the election with an independently audited Logic and Accuracy test of their ImageCast® tabulators. 

Accurate census information is essential for city planning and delivering public services and infrastructure such as schools, roads, recreational facilities, emergency services, libraries, and elections. Having an accurate population count and city metrics also helps to ensure that the city receives appropriate funding from other levels of government, and can make informed decisions on the spending of those funds.

For their 2014 Census, the City of Edmonton knew that they needed a partner they could rely on to provide exceptional customer service, cutting-edge technology, and results they could trust. The City of Edmonton is committed to making bold and intelligent technology choices and Dominion Voting is proud to have been selected as their partner of choice.

Dominion Voting has provided paper census tabulation services to the City of Edmonton since 2005, and for the first time this year, Edmonton residents had the option to access and input their data for the biennial census using the city’s new, streamlined and easy-to-use Online Census System, developed by Dominion. Every residence in Edmonton received a letter with a secure access code and directions on how to securely enter their household census information via the Online Census System.

“I am thrilled with how Edmontonians have embraced the online census,” said Laura Kennedy, Director of Elections and Census. Approximately 110,000 residents completed their census forms online (a 30% uptake) – a major milestone in the city’s plans to lead progressive change through innovative and new technologies.

Completing the census online was optional, and residents were able to access the Online Census System from April 10th to April 27th. Census officials began going door-to-door on May 10th to count in Edmontonians who did not participate in the online census. Results from both the online and offline census were gathered from over 350,000 dwellings, and were then automatically tabulated and consolidated in Dominion’s eCensus Suite.

Dominion Voting is the only company to offer completely integrated online and offline tabulation services, providing customers with a seamless census operation, from defining the census questions to results reporting. Edmonton is one of the first large cities in Canada to adopt an online option for completing their municipal census. Dominion is proud to be providing the technology behind this important e-governance project, and to be partnering with the City of Edmonton to deliver a solution that is accurate, convenient, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly.

Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunset-East-Downtown-Skyline-Edmonton-Alberta-Canada-01.jpg

We are proud to announce that Dominion employees, coupled with the matching funds from the Company and the Canadian government, have donated over $12,000 towards relief efforts in the Philippines, following the tremendous damage caused by Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013.  Although there is much devastation in the Philippines, fortunately donations continue to flow in from many countries, employers and individuals.  Progress is being made, but there is much to be done.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/navalsurfaceforces/10946989226/