About
About Democracy Counts
We provide professional electoral services and state of the art electoral management software to UK Local Authorities and UK Central Government as well as managed referendums and ballot services to public, private and community organisations.
Democracy Counts is recognised as a leading provider of electoral software and services including preparation of polling schemes, planning, nominations, printing and mailing, production of election stationery, postal voting, risk evaluation, counting and declaration of results.
We have the systems, processes, breadth and depth of knowledge, skills and experience to deliver a "closed loop" solution to support you through the election cycle. We already provide both print and mail production of election stationery as well as election management and postal vote software to UK local authorities, NHS Trusts and Private business.
Our Elector Centre suite of products, the software underpinning our electoral services, has been developed using market leading technology. They are modular, scaleable and fully integrated, providing the most extensive range of democratic software solutions available in the world.
Enabling Public Bodies to Achieve Excellence in Democratic Services
From the moment a citizen receives their ballot paper to the moment they cast their vote can be a matter of minutes – yet it is in this fleeting act that our democracy is sustained and the way in which we govern ourselves finds its legitimacy.
But the relative simplicity with which people may cast their vote belies the complex structure, systems, processes - and the hard-working teams of dedicated public servants - whose function is to ensure the democratic process works effectively and efficiently. Democracy Counts has a growing role in enabling the infrastructure of electoral services.
What We Do
Established in 2009, Democracy Counts is a leading provider of state of the art electoral management software, support services and training to the UK Government and local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales - as well as managed referendums and ballot services to public, private and community organisations.
We cover every stage of the election process - including preparation of polling schemes, planning, nominations, printing and mailing, production of election stationery, postal voting, risk evaluation, counting and declaration of results.
In 2014, reforms to the UK electoral system were introduced with Individual Electoral Registration (IER), enabling individuals to control their own registration and to register on-line. Democracy Counts developed our EMS (electoral management system) - Elector8 - against the specific changes and challenges of IER, developing the system as the proposals were being discussed and refined, meaning the system was ready to launch at the same time as the reforms.
Through fully understanding the amount of communication that electoral services managers and administrators would need to perform, we developed Elector8 as a Customer Relationship Management system – with a focus on modularity, scaleability, system integration, and a full data security audit trail.
Our system is constantly evolving, responsive to the needs of those who manage and administer elections. We want to make elections increasingly secure, reliable, simpler and more cost-effective to organise, manage and deliver - and to make the voting experience as straightforward and reliable as possible.
Democracy Counts is Constantly Innovating
Innovation is at the core of how we, our system and services work, focused on excellence in the delivery of citizens’ democratic rights by making electoral services manageable through increasing functionality, generating efficiencies and reducing costs. Some of our innovations include:
Citizens’ Accounts
Our software, Elector8 Connect, enables the integration of information across different local government services and systems, facilitating a ‘tell us once’ approach – with any updated information provided to one department (i.e. a change of address) automatically updating across the account to other services. It also enables cheaper and more efficient communication to citizens in advance of elections – such as informing them when to register, postal and proxy vote deadlines, e-polling cards, and election day information such as directions to their polling stations.
E-polling Cards
Functioning as part of the citizen account service, this provides a barcode ID to each voter and centrally marks the register once a vote has been cast. We are hoping to see this technology trialled in the 2020 Police and Crime Commissioners’ elections.
Integration with gov.notify
Elector8 was the first EMS to fully integrate with gov.notify, in January 2019. This provides for free and significantly cheaper texts to voters, providing significant cost savings to local authorities.
A Single Register
Democracy Counts already supplies the software to the British Library to hold the National Register of Electors. This means that a single register is ready to launch. It could be ‘by nation’ as required, and in accordance with whichever security/anonymisation limitations are required (i.e. either searchable – showing an individual’s registration details - or confirmatory, simply providing a yes/no answer to the question ‘am I registered?’).
Our registration system allows additional needs to be recorded to give the local authority, and each individual polling station, the ability to plan and prepare for the provision of relevant assistance to the voter.
Tablet technology
Utlilised for the recording of information during the annual canvas, with information being uploaded directly to a web-based server (live, and encrypted), our software is the only product that can be used across all systems and includes a voter ID capability.
Supporting ever Greater Excellence in Delivering Democratic Rights
"Democracy Counts recognises that the democratic process is crucial to our way of life. We will provide high quality niche products and services that save time, and cost, whilst increasing both security and transparency to our clients' business process.
Democracy Counts is a business that truly understands the end to end business processes that affect the Democratic and Elections Cycle. Consequently, our products and solutions are aimed at driving efficiencies in the processes through continuous improvement, whist providing fully audited management information, and subsequent security. We will leverage the experience of our clients and our staff in order to provide excellence in Customer Service and innovative development in order to achieve our aspirations of ‘World Class’ status."
Sectors We Serve
We work with a variety of companies and organisations across the public and private sectors. We are recognised as market leaders in the provision of ballot and election services, specialising in online and offline elections and registration. Our software is the most advanced and extensive suite of election and voter registration services available in the world. We are appointed by all types and sizes of organisations and are trusted by UK Government in an ongoing Cabinet Office contract.
We can assist you in all your democratic processes: for example assisting in holding a ballot, election, vote, survey or referendum. This may involve fewer than a hundred voters or several hundred thousand. Our impartial administration and management guarantees the integrity and independence of the process and delivers a result in which electors have confidence.
World Class Support of World Class Software
Like our own electoral management system and services, democracy itself needs constantly to evolve. We respond to the ever-changing threats of cyber-attack and fraud, and embrace the enhanced opportunities that technology provides for increasing voter registration and participation.
Whilst we look forward to helping deliver further electoral modernisation, we believe there is a need for a broader conversation about how the form and function UK democracy can improve. For example, how do we increase voter confidence and engagement, what do we want the voter experience to be, how do we reduce the bureaucratic burden on electoral administrators, and how do we help the democratic process to evolve and expand in the digital age with ever more resilience, and inclusivity? These are all questions any review of our democracy will need to address, and we look forward to being both part of the discussion and a provider of solutions.
Fast Performance
Built on the most modern platform in the market Elector8 offers significantly faster processing speeds. Extracts run in seconds with no need for others to log out.
Online Support
Democracy Counts boast the best Support Staff to Customer ratio in the industry. Support can be accessed through the system, online, email or by the phone. Get through to an expert straight away, not just a message taker.
Top Security
Elector8 data is always encrypted in transport and at rest. The client may also encrypt the data and only the client holds the encryption key. The system security is fully customisable. Elector8 includes a full data security audit trail.
Are You Ready for GDPR
With the improvements to the security and rights extended by GDPR, its important to understand how your suppliers, process and systems will comply. As the vendor that has held more relevant accreditation for the longest time we can provide you the peace of mind you need in ensuring compliance to GDPR.
We guarantee that our solution has security built in by design to mitigate the need for the manual support of the provisions.
Want to Change Your EMS Supplier?
Elector8 software delivers functionality that would take other suppliers years to develop and deploy. We are constantly pushing innovation ahead of our competitors who are still working on compliance. We were the first to introduce self service for staff in 2012, the first to introduce tablets for canvassing Pre IER 2014, we were the first to introduce the use of shape files for quick boundary reviews in 2015, we were the first to pilot e-Poll Cards in 2016 inline with Cabinet Office Guidelines, our Candidate Portal and Citizen App are unique in the market.
Authorities who have seen Elector8 and benchmarked against their existing systems agree that it is years, if not decades ahead of other software in the market. Benefit from the technology leader now, backed by the best support in the industry – Demand Democracy Counts.
Our competitors are playing catch up, but our decision to build on a platform 15-20 years newer allows us to develop multiple times faster and most importantly much more safely. Our competitors will be always looking to Democracy Counts for ideas.
At Democracy Counts we believe in 'Different not Difficult'. Even the way we demonstrate is different. With its many unique features, and still the only Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the market to support your numerous communications. We guarantee that what you see can't then be 'Unseen'.
We guarantee that our solution will have more useful features than any of our competitors AND you will always get support when you need it. If you haven't seen why Elector8 is the fastest growing EMS in the country book a demonstration now.
The Only CRM In The Market
As an Electoral Administrative Lead at your Authority, you will be aware that modern technology is of great benefit in helping you engage with citizens, whilst improving your service delivery and reducing cost.
We know that adhering to statutory minimums is vital. We also understand Electoral Registration Officers are consistently being tasked with improving levels of engagement with their electorate.
Elector8 is a fully compliant EMS that is unique to the sector. It has been developed as a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) but what does this mean to you as an Electoral Administrator?
A quick search on Wikipedia for the definition of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) provides the following:
“CRM is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.”
As an Electoral Administrator, by utilising multi-channel communication mediums such as email or SMS, you can have the information at the fingertips of the targeted audience in real time, all whilst reducing the cost of communications by up to 90%. One of our clients worked out that by achieving a 25% saving on their communication spend equated to the wages of two members of staff.
Why Wait For Statutory Deadlines when You Have A CRM?
Put in the context of Electoral Administration, Elector8 has the ability to manage an Electoral Administrator’s interaction with current and potential electors. It can specifically focus on using various low cost multi-communication channels at any one time or be set to use automated communication helping to engage with the electorate whilst improving and increasing the accuracy of the electoral register. Built in data analysis tools can also measure what communication channel was the most effective for your electorate by whatever demographics you choose to measure.
As Elector8 is the only CRM based EMS in the sector, it allows you to manage your electoral data in ways that have never previously been imagined and conforms to the idea of being able to communicate clearly and communicate often.
By gaining a greater understanding of your electorate, you will be able to plan your communication strategies more effectively. In turn, this will also increase your levels of accuracy and enhance your customer focused strategies - all with a positive impact on any budgetary constraints you may be under.
World Class Software / World Class Support
"Democracy Counts recognises that the democratic process is crucial to our way of life. We will provide high quality niche products and services that save time, and cost, whilst increasing both security and transparency to our clients' business process.
Democracy Counts is a business that truly understands the end to end business processes that affect the Democratic and Elections Cycle. Consequently, our products and solutions are aimed at driving efficiencies in the processes through continuous improvement, whilst providing fully audited management information, and subsequent security. We will leverage the experience of our clients and our staff in order to provide excellence in Customer Service and innovative development in order to achieve our aspirations of ‘World Class’ status."
Our ElectorCentre Product Range comprises of world class web and desktop solutions to support the whole democratic process and fully support Participation and Engagement. Our software is the most functional and efficient in the UK. Ask us for a no obligation demonstration and we will prove it to you.