Infosentry Conducted a Needs Assessment and Requirements Analysis for a Centralized Voter

Election Management Information System
Requirements Analysis, Vendor Procurement, and
User Acceptance Testing

InfoSENTRY prepared a detailed needs assessment and requirements analysis in 1996 and 1997 for election management information systems in Wake County, North Carolina. At the time, WakeCounty had approximately 400,000 registered voters. The research for the requirements analysis included intensive onsite work with CountyBoard of Elections staff members, analyzing their use of the mainframe system and their needs for new functions and changes in workflow.

InfoSENTRY teamed with the County Elections Director, County information systems staff members, and County purchasing staff members to integreate the detailed requirements analysis into a Request for Proposals (RFP). The RFPwas for a full election management information system and document management system to meet WakeCounty’s broad election administration needs. The RFP included functions for voter registration management, absentee voter management, electronic document imaging, report writing, candidate filing, address file management, and public access to voter registration data. InfoSENTRYassisted in designing the methodology for evaluating vendor’s proposals and documenting the County’s justification for the selected system.

InfoSENTRY served as the integration consultant during WakeCounty’s implementation of the new system. User acceptance testing was a critical element of InfoSENTRY’s post-selection support to the WakeCounty. We designed the user acceptance test, assuring traceability of each test item back to the original requirements in the request for proposals. We assisted county staff in carrying out various tests, most importantly those examining the data conversion from the mainframe’s “flat file” structure to the new system’s relational database management system. We based our documentation of the user acceptance tests on Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) test guidelines and managed the full test documentation process.

The full implementation project resulted in the WakeCounty Board of Elections having one of the first voter registration systems in the United States based on an electronic document imaging workflow and providing voter registration records on the Internet.

InfoSENTRY continued assistance to the WakeCounty Board of Elections assisting in various information technology projects.