Oh, Canada: Major Election Technology Research Collaboration with Elections Ontario

San-Francisco, CA — GET Summit At Day-2 of the Global Election Technology Summit underway in San Francisco, we're announcing a unique collaboration with a Canadian partner, Elections Ontario for the Province of Ontario, Canada. While we continue to have a primary focus on innovating U.S. elections technology, we regularly receive inquiries from abroad -- 40% of all inquiries per month, on average.

So, there is no doubt election administration and voting technology innovation is a global issue. This unique initiative has been in the works for some time.  This collaboration is intended to enable Elections Ontario to tap into, and leverage OSET Institute’s decade of expertise in elector and election administration technology.  Our applied research team includes internationally known interactive designers formerly with Apple and Netscape Communications, and a contributing Core Team of elite cyber security experts and veteran computer engineers who specialize in election technology as a public benefit—resources Elections Ontario is interested in collaborating with in pursuit of electoral innovations for the Province of Ontario.

"Elections Ontario is committed to building modern services that put the voter first while maintaining the integrity and accessibility of the electoral process," said Greg Essensa, Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer. "Collaborating with the OSET Institute will allow us to advance our modernization agenda by working with a team of election technology experts who have been developing solutions for a decade. OSET provides us with a ready-to-work state-of-the-art research and development lab." 

Mr. Essensa previously addressed the Canadian Parliament last September to set the context for this relationship which has been in development for nearly two years.

With the level of foreign inquiry we receive monthly combined with a satellite office at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, in addition to a decade of developing domain expertise in U.S. elections and related technology, we're developing a broad range of understanding of a variety of electoral systems globally.

For Elections Ontario, the TrustTheVote Project contains a wealth of open-source software that can jump-start proof-of-concepts, prototypes, and pilots of any aspect of election technology. From elector registration, elections results reporting, analytics to ballot layout and production, to digital poll books and tabulators, innovative election technology can help make it more convenient and easier for Ontarians to cast a ballot.

This research and development collaboration is precisely the type of relationship we hope to offer election organizations in any jurisdiction, anywhere.  Elections Ontario has a long term vision for how they intend to innovate electoral technology and they made a strategic decision to calibrate their own research and development efforts with our ElectOS election operating system project.

By way of some background, Elections Ontario (“EO”) is responsible for running provincial elections in Ontario. It is a non-partisan office of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Canada, which means it has no political affiliation. EO is charged with protecting the integrity of the electoral process, and EO makes sure that Ontario provincial elections are independent, impartial, efficient, secure, transparent and accountable. EO also provides Ontarians with information they can use to learn more about provincial elections, the electoral process and how they can participate. EO is meeting the changing needs of Ontarians by improving and innovating the ways in which Elections Ontario runs provincial elections, and is committed to making meaningful innovative changes over the long term.

With this kind of a mission, the OSET Institute is an ideal match to collaborate with Elections Ontario.  And we're excited about what the potential of this R&D collaboration can produce to help EO innovate their electoral technology, as well as benefit U.S. election technology innovation.