Modern Democracy

Modern Polling

Modern Polling is a transformative digital solution that is catapulting polling stations into the 21st century.
The cloud-based platform provides a polling station management portal and supports digital registration and voter verification.
Designed for purpose, Modern Polling, the only dedicated product in market that delivers both operation and financial efficiencies.

Features

• Digital Check in and Voter Verification
• Real-Time Analytics
• Hourly Turnout
• Instant Reporting
• Poll Station Management
• Remote Clerical Amendments
• Remote Emergency Proxies
• Automatic Ballot Paper Generation
• Automatic Corresponding Number List Generation

Benefits

• Total control and complete visibility allowing data driven decisions
• Removes human error, efficient receipting and close of poll process
• Quicker and more professional service thus reducing queues
• Reduces risks from VoterID and register management, meeting legislative requirements
• Identify and remedy bottlenecks for operational efficiencies
• Instant generation of all post-election reports
• Timely communications between Election Managers, Returning Officers and Candidates
• Supports Voter ID including statuary reports
• Supports net zero carbon agenda by reduction in paper
• Reduces risks around recruitment and training for all polls

£9,500 a licence

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at sdonaghy@moderndemocracy.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

493004233843714

Contact

Siobhan Donaghy
028 7186 7631
sdonaghy@moderndemocracy.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Private cloud
• Service constraints: Poll Station software operates on Apple iPad
• System requirements: Apple iPad

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Monday to Friday tickets are responded to daily between 9:00am and 5:00pm; ; On election day, support is available from 6:00am until close of poll
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Support is available during normal working day 9:00am to 5:00pm via Incident Management system or by telephone. All customers also have a dedicated Account Manager. On Election day this support increases and is available from 6:00am to Close of Poll, during the election period(6 weeks prior to poll day) every customer is assigned a Project Lead.; ; Response times are as follows:; Critical - The situation halts your business operations and severely impacts your service usage - TRT 30mins; Major - Significant impact caused to business operations - TRT 4 Hours; Minor - Some non-critical impact on business operations - TRT 5 working days; Cosmetic - Routine Issues - Added to backlog and discussed at the Focus Group
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Modern Democracy provides the end user with an implementation plan outlining key details of the service. They have access to online training, video and user guides and a customer support/knowledge hub.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • ODF
  • PDF
  • Other
• Other documentation formats:
  • Video
  • Knowledge Hub
• End-of-contract data extraction: All Reports are downloadable. Users are communicated with to ensure they have downloaded all reports before the data in the system is securely deleted
• End-of-contract process: Hosting of data and all reports for 35 days after the event. Users will have the ability to securely download all of the reports at this stage. If a user wants to extend this, then this service is available at an additional cost, the additional hosting is for 365 days

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Chrome
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems: IOS
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: The Modern Polling app is installed on an iPad; The Modern Polling platform can be accessed on any device
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AAA
• Description of service interface: Allows users to upload data, verify the data uploaded, Manage ballot allocation to poll stations, manage staff assignments to poll stations.; View Ballot Paper Accounts and voter Turnout; Monitor the battery life of the device; Monitor the level of activity at the poll station; Download all reports
• Accessibility standards: WCAG 2.1 AAA
• Accessibility testing: N/A
• API: No
• Customisation available: No

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Our services are deployed over multiple environments on AWS to ensure that users are not affected by the demand of other users

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Shows what users are logged in to which devices; Shows battery levels on mobile devices; Shows status of users, if they are offline and last logged in
• Reporting types: Real-time dashboards

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: None

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
• Protecting data at rest: Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Users log into the portal using their mobile number and a one time passcode, only users pre-registered can access the portal to download their reports and data. The portal provides the users with the ability to securely download all reports and data by clicking on a button and there is full traceability of this process. When data is securely downloaded all data is securely deleted.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats: PDF
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats: TSV

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Availability ; ; Modern Democracy will be available to assist clients to focus on the agenda, discuss the objectives, ask questions to widen clients’ understanding, listen, provide feedback, bring a different perspective and help sort out the many and complex issues of running elections. Ultimately, we will aim to impart our knowledge and experience to motivate and inspire clients. ; ; Modern Democracy is available during business hours of 9:00am – 5:00pm Monday to Thursday and 9:00am to 3:00pm on Friday through the following means: ; ; Incident Management Portal – support.moderndemocracy.com ; ; Telephone: 028 7186 7631 ; ; Email: info@moderndemocracy.com ; ; At critical times throughout the project, Modern Democracy will be working outside of these normal hours to ensure project key milestones are met – this will be agreed with the client at project commencement. ; ; Out of Hours Support ; ; On commencement of a project, the client will be provided with the contact details of their Project Manager including a direct line telephone number with out of office hours contact details should a client encounter any difficulties.; On election day, support is available from 6am through to close of poll, Election Managers should raise a ticket via the Incident Management Portal.
• Approach to resilience: Our data centre is hosted by AWS; The EU-West-2 region has 3 availability zones - data centers located 60 miles apart
• Outage reporting: Modern Democracy's Internal Support dashboards are monitored 24/7 during an Election Event, if there are any outages this will be reported directly to the Customer.; Customers also have their own individual dashboards, these can be used to monitor activity at a poll station level, they will be alerted through their dashboards if a poll station has a connectivity outage, the poll station can still operate even if an outage occurs.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: All users need to be pre-registered on Modern Polling with a unique mobile number, they then will use this mobile number and a one-time passcode to access the portal.; For support channel they are pre registered with a username and password
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: User-defined
• How long system logs are stored for: User-defined

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Certification EUROPE
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: Dec 2023
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Everything is covered
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: Modern Democracy has fully implemented ISO 27001:2022 into all aspects of the business. Staff are trained monthly on various elements of security, these tests are graded and monitored. There is an appointed ISO, Manu Thomas.; Each employee, supplier or other third party who is in contact with information and/or systems of Modern Democracy must report any system weakness, incident or event which could lead to a possible incident as follows:; all information and communication technology-related events must be reported to Information Security Officer and Engineering Management ; all events must be reported to Information Security Officer; Incidents, weaknesses and events must be reported as soon as possible, by phone in person. ; Security Policies include:; A.5 - Information Security Policies; A.6 - Organisational Security; A.7 - Human Resource Security; A.8 - Asset Management; A.9 - Access Control Policy; A.10 - Policy on the use of Cryptographic Controls; A.11 - Disposal and Destruction Policy; A.11 - Physical & Environmental Security; A.12 - Operations Security; A.13 - Communications Security; Information Transfer Policy; Secure Development Policy; A.14 - System Acquisition and Development; A.15 - Supplier Relationships; A.16 - Information Security Incident Management; A.17 - Information Security Aspects of Business Continuity Management; A.18 - Compliance

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: We leverage AWS CDK, allowing infrastructure configurations to be expressed as code and version-controlled alongside application code in GitLab repositories. Developers submit change requests in the form of merge requests following GitLab's standard workflow, this promotes code through dev, test, staging and production environments using GitLab CI/CD pipelines, enabling automated testing.; CDK code changes follow the same approval in GitLab. Changes are reviewed by designated stakeholders, including cyber security, before deployment.; Security compliance is assured by utilising Auto DevSecOPs features of Gitlab. Following deployment, AWS Config, AWS CloudTrail continuously monitor the environment for compliance violations, security threats, and unexpected changes.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: We hold regular ISO and Cyber Security meetings to ensure that our BCP, incident response management and inventory of information assets, including those hosted in the cloud are tested and compliant.; Check registered company performs PenTesting of cloud infrastructure and application code. Internal IT systems are patched regularly while our cloud infrastructure is patched by AWS as part of the shared security model.; We have robust change management processes and procedures in place to monitor security and compliance and handle roll back if necessary. Developers undertake enhanced security training to ensure they are aware of emerging and trending security vulnerabilities.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Extensive range of WAF rules, proactively block malicious looking traffic and prevent Denial of Service attacks. We have a dashboard that allows us to view the traffic that is been blocked. For large election events we provide developer support, we also engage AWS event support.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Incidents are logged in our Incident Management Portal, ; Users can log the incident themselves or by calling Support and getting their Project Lead to log the Incident; Once logged the Incident is triaged and either resolved or escalated.; A user can follow the progress on their incident through to resolution.; A report can be generated outlining any incidents and their outcomes

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery

  Fighting climate change

  Using Modern Polling digital product reduces the amount of paper required at the poll station, reduces the amount of print required

  Covid-19 recovery

  Using Modern Polling means there is less physical contact between staff and voters, reduces queues so there is less people in the poll station at the same time.

Pricing

• Price: £9,500 a licence
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at sdonaghy@moderndemocracy.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.