Canon subsidiary Image Recognition Integrated Systems (I.R.I.S.) is seeking global opportunities for a distributed voting capture platform it has developed with online voting solutions developer Scytl, A Spanish company with which it has already accomplished digital election projects in Ecuador and Honduras in 2013.

For the Ecuadorian election, the two companies designed a solution combining I.R.I.S document recognition and data extraction capabilities with Scytl’s end-to-end integrated e-Election Platform. 

For this election voting slips gathered in polling stations were grouped into reports. These were then scanned and processed in a decentralised scenario in 105 scanning centres. 

Pablo Sarrias, EVP Corporate Development, Scytl, said, “We were impressed not only by the excellent extraction technology provided by IRISXtract for Documents, but also by I.R.I.S.’ commitment. Our partnership started under extremely challenging conditions – we had two months to deploy 105 scanning centres and to train more than 1,500 people working with the solution. It was challenging, but in the end a resounding success.”

I.R.I.S.’ XContext engine is a full-text recognition technology that searches the text for key information based on rule sets – so relevant data can be extracted easily and automatically. Scytl’s e-Election Platform, on the other hand, automates the election process and the counting of votes. It incorporates patented and unique election-specific cryptographic security technology. 

As regards the Ecuadorian election 2013, the reports were electronically snipped and an audit trail was used for the entire processing of the reports to make sure the results could not be manipulated. All data transfer was recorded and encrypted. For full auditability, employees involved in the processing needed to be authenticated. The data extracted from the reports, as well as any metadata, could then be gathered, subsumed in a data base, and evaluated to check if the results were correct and plausible, and no rigging had been done.

With four elections being handled simultaneously in Ecuador, Scytl took over the entire election management from start to finish. 

Manfred Traeger, Sales Director Outsourcing Services, I.R.I.S. AG acknowledges: “We are grateful for partnering with Scytl in this global and demanding environment. They have a strong expertise in election management which coupled with our technology, allows them to carry out elections more efficiently. The election in Ecuador was an exceptional project that made full use of both of our technological capabilities. Automatically processing the reports allowed for the data to be quickly available and to give parties and the community regular reports on the status of the election results.“

After the successful implementation and joint collaboration supporting the elections in Ecuador and Honduras, Scytl and I.R.I.S. are looking forward to ongoing partnering opportunities across the globe.