http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=97864
Government Technology
Jan 13, 2006
Arizona Awards Contract for Statewide Voter Registration
Management System
News Staff
The state of Arizona awarded IBM a $9.4 million contract to
assist the state in developing and implementing a statewide system to make
voter registration more efficient, secure and accurate.
The new Voter Registration Arizona System II will use IBM
xSeries 346 and 336 systems and Election Systems & Software's PowerProfile
Enterprise EditionR voter registration and election management software with
the goal of implementing a secure, centralized database of registered voters.
The Web-based system will enable election officials in all Arizona counties to
process registrations on a centralized system, identify and eliminate duplicate
voter registrations and, when necessary, automatically transfer voters from
county to county.
This new system is designed to meet the requirements of the
national Help America Vote Act of 2002. It requires that by the 2006 elections,
states must have a statewide, centralized voter registration database.
Arizona installed a phase-one project in January of 2004,
meeting the early, basic requirements of HAVA and becoming one of the first
states in the nation to do so.
"VRAZ-II will build on the great success of
VRAZ-I", said Jan Brewer, Arizona Secretary of State. "The new system
will make it much easier to ensure that voter registration processes are the
same across the entire state, allowing all citizens to have a similar voting
experience. It will also increase the timeliness and accuracy of the voter
registration data."
In most states, voter registration data has been maintained at
the local level. Increasing mobility of the population results in voter
registration files that are quickly outdated, increasing the complexity of
voter registration management and the possibility of voter fraud or
inaccuracies.
Some Arizona counties have been on their current voter
registration systems since the early 1980's. The new system will replace those
old systems with newer and more reliable technology.
The new system will be designed with the goal of helping to
reduce voter registration fraud and increasing registration accuracy by
providing real-time duplicate voter matching, utilizing court record and death
record matching capabilities, and matching voter registration data with the
Motor Vehicle Division's driver license database.
News Staff
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