Xerox DocuShare Helps Honolulu Verify Absentee Voter Signatures in Historic Election

PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 1, 2009 - Between 126.5 million and 128.5 million eligible voters cast ballots in the historic 2008 presidential election.  Anticipating an influx of absentee ballots, possibly in record numbers, the City and County of Honolulu turned to Xerox DocuShare® enterprise content management platform to speed up verifying voter signatures by electronically storing signature images so that they could be quickly retrieved — authenticating the ballot within seconds.

More than 85,000 voters filed absentee ballots in Honolulu. Prior to using a DocuShare solution, customized by Honolulu, the signatures were on hard copy files and could take up to 20 minutes to retrieve. By turning the paper signatures into digital files that can be archived and retrieved with one-click, the office was able to verify anywhere between 5,000 to 9,000 ballots a day during the election season.

“DocuShare completely transformed our absentee ballot process,” said Glen Takahashi, elections administrator, City and County of Honolulu. “Eliminating our dependence on paper records, maximized our productivity.”

The City and County is also using DocuShare to better serve the citizens of Honolulu and improve other internal work practices. Turning paper to digital and sharing information online, staff members across the entire County can get work done faster. Using a partner solution, the WaterWare Mirroring Agent, for publishing from DocuShare to an Internet website, they can post content for public viewing - allowing citizens instant access to government public records and other information from any computer. Because DocuShare’s Web-based folders can accommodate an array of content - ranging from scanned documents, spreadsheets, computer generated documents, to blogs and wiki’s - the City and County of Honolulu has eliminated several rows of filing cabinets that were previously used to house documents. Employees now enjoy more work space and the reduction of paper makes the offices more environmentally friendly.