Dublin City Council (DCC) is the democratically elected body that governs Dublin City. It is the largest Local Authority in Ireland. DCC has implemented a hybrid Azure cloud-based electoral portal http://www.voter.ie for the citizens residing in the four local authorities; Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, and South Dublin County Council. 

THE CHALLENGE

There are currently over 899,000 people entitled to vote in the four local authorities. Each year there are on average 25,000 people who reach the eligibility age to vote in the Dublin region. In 2018, it was an exceptionally busy year, and 43,312 electors registered to vote in the Dublin region. In any given year, DCC expects over 64,000 changes to electorate details and wanted an electoral portal that would be the go-to portal for new and existing voters.

THE SOLUTION

Following a comprehensive tender evaluation process, TEKenable was chosen as the technology provider to design, build, test, and support the electoral portal using our Digital Systems Service.

The project involved a great deal of complexity incorporating the integration with Azure Cloud and on-premise databases, integration with the Department of Social Protection MyGovID system, and integration with the existing electoral user information database. As the electoral portal would not be only processing sensitive personal data but would be doing so in the context of the electoral process, protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data was critical. 

The solution had to guard against attempts to disrupt or alter the outcome of the electoral process which prioritized data protection, data privacy, and data security for Dublin City Council. The solution can seamlessly respond to spikes in demand that may be occasioned by pending filing deadlines or other events. 

THE OUTCOME

For Dublin City Council, the electoral portal will provide the benefit of automating much of the current manual processes in changing the personal and contact details of voters in the various local authorities which will reduce the cost and administrative overhead substantially.

TEKenable delivered a highly secure, scalable, available, and user-friendly electoral portal that will address the voter search, voter registration, and change detail requirements of the existing and future electorate of the greater Dublin region for decades to come with the possibility of extending this coverage nationally in the future.

A comment from the Minister of State for Local Government and Electoral Reform “I see this as an important step towards the Government’s plan to improve and modernize the electoral registration process.” is provided in https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/new-online-voter-registration-available-for-dubliners-1.3871931