The Scottish Government awards the supplier CGI with a £6.5m contract. This deal includes the provision of support, software and the technical infrastructure for a new electronic ballot counting system.

The new electronic ballot system is to be implemented in time for the next local government elections in 2017 – where 1,200 councillors will be elected across the 32 Scottish councils. This system is expected to reduce the manual counting time of ballot papers – which can take up to four days – to a fraction of the current time.

CGI claims that the new e-counting system will not only reduce the counting time to a matter of hours but will also increase the accuracy and transparency of the counting process.

This system will be tested during the next year and as Maggie Morrison – director of public sector for CGI operations in Scotland – adds; “Our very best teams will work closely with local authority partners to undertake a huge amount of planning, testing and training ahead of the crunch election period”.

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