Best Practices and Pitfalls in the Procurement of New Technologies for Elections
Administration of elections is a complex business. Most senior administrators, whether they are elected officials, politically appointed or employed as civil servants, come from other fields with little or no specific election experience. Many are lawyers or judges; others are employees of government offices responsible for civil registries, tax records, or vital statistics. Still others are politically prominent citizens nominated by political parties to serve on election commissions activated during election cycles. Most of them become “election professionals” through actual experience on the job. As all election officials learn, the picture is never static. And, now, with the ever more rapid pace with which new technologies are introduced in the market place, new pressures to modernize bring new challenges to the election administrator who must now add a sound grasp of the world of high tech to his or her skill set.
