T&T firm launches digital voting platform

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Long queues, man­u­al bal­lot count­ing and de­layed elec­tion re­sults could soon be­come a thing of the past for mem­ber-based or­gan­i­sa­tions with the in­tro­duc­tion of iV­ote Live, a dig­i­tal vot­ing plat­form de­vel­oped in Trinidad and To­ba­go to mod­ernise elec­tions and mem­ber par­tic­i­pa­tion.

The plat­form, cre­at­ed by Rose IT Ser­vices Ltd, was un­veiled Tues­day dur­ing a hy­brid event at the Leon Agos­ti­ni Con­fer­ence Hall, Cham­ber Build­ing, West­moor­ings. At­ten­dees on­line and in per­son were giv­en a live demon­stra­tion of how the sys­tem works.

The pre­sen­ta­tion walked par­tic­i­pants through com­mon elec­tion chal­lenges faced by or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing lengthy reg­is­tra­tion, lim­it­ed mem­ber par­tic­i­pa­tion, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty bar­ri­ers for those un­able to at­tend in per­son, man­u­al vote count­ing, con­cerns over ver­i­fi­ca­tion and the need to pro­duce ac­cu­rate re­sults quick­ly.

The com­pa­ny said iV­ote Live was de­signed around these prac­ti­cal chal­lenges rather than sim­ply in­tro­duc­ing new tech­nol­o­gy. The plat­form stream­lines vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, sup­ports hy­brid par­tic­i­pa­tion, safe­guards the in­tegri­ty of the vot­ing process and al­lows or­gan­i­sa­tions to en­gage mem­bers more ef­fi­cient­ly.

The sys­tem is the re­sult of more than a decade of ex­pe­ri­ence by ROSE IT Ser­vices in sup­port­ing an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ings, elec­tions and mem­ber en­gage­ment across T&T and the wider Caribbean.

Founder and CEO Omar Romero said the plat­form evolved from years of help­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions over­come prob­lems as­so­ci­at­ed with tra­di­tion­al elec­tion process­es.
"We want­ed more than on­line vot­ing," Romero said, ex­plain­ing that every im­prove­ment to the plat­form was dri­ven by the needs of clients and their mem­bers.

He said the com­pa­ny ini­tial­ly in­tro­duced elec­tron­ic bal­lot count­ing to re­place pa­per-based sys­tems be­fore de­vel­op­ing a ful­ly dig­i­tal vot­ing plat­form. De­mand for se­cure re­mote par­tic­i­pa­tion ac­cel­er­at­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, when or­gan­i­sa­tions had to find new ways for mem­bers to take part in meet­ings and elec­tions.

Romero in­di­cat­ed iV­ote Live has been used in more than 300 elec­tions across T&T and the wider Caribbean and has sup­port­ed more than 150,000 reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants.

The plat­form has been de­vel­oped for cred­it unions, home­own­ers' as­so­ci­a­tions, civic or­gan­i­sa­tions, trade unions, in­ter­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion­al elec­tions and oth­er mem­ber-based bod­ies that re­quire se­cure vot­ing.

De­liv­er­ing the keynote ad­dress, strate­gic busi­ness ad­vis­er Con­rad Enill said tech­nol­o­gy has an im­por­tant role to play in strength­en­ing gov­er­nance but must be built on strong prin­ci­ples.

"Tech­nol­o­gy by it­self does not cre­ate trust. A plat­form does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly cre­ate good gov­er­nance. A dig­i­tal vote does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly cre­ate democ­ra­cy," Enill said.
He added that suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal plat­forms must be de­signed around "ac­cess, se­cu­ri­ty, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty."

Enill said the tra­di­tion­al mod­el of re­quir­ing mem­bers to gath­er at a spe­cif­ic lo­ca­tion and time is be­com­ing less prac­ti­cal as work pat­terns and lifestyles change.

"Many mem­bers no longer par­tic­i­pate in the way the tra­di­tion­al mod­el re­quires," he said, point­ing to chang­ing work arrange­ments, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty chal­lenges, dig­i­tal be­hav­iour and the need to en­gage younger gen­er­a­tions.

Speak­ing about the cred­it union move­ment, Enill not­ed that T&T has about 763,000 mem­bers across 133 cred­it unions, mak­ing mem­ber par­tic­i­pa­tion and con­fi­dence es­sen­tial to the sec­tor's long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

He said dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion should not sim­ply be about con­ve­nience but should al­so im­prove gov­er­nance, fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion and in­sti­tu­tion­al rel­e­vance.

ROSE IT Ser­vices be­lieves iV­ote Live sup­ports a more in­clu­sive ap­proach to de­ci­sion-mak­ing by al­low­ing mem­bers to par­tic­i­pate se­cure­ly re­gard­less of where they are lo­cat­ed.

The com­pa­ny said fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of the plat­form will fo­cus on mak­ing dig­i­tal par­tic­i­pa­tion even more ac­ces­si­ble, se­cure and scal­able for or­gan­i­sa­tions of all sizes.
ROSE IT Ser­vices Lim­it­ed is a Trinidad and To­ba­go tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny that pro­vides man­aged IT ser­vices, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and in­no­va­tion so­lu­tions.