Chief Electoral Office
Including 2008, Catalyst has been the supplier of the CEO's election management system for four general elections.This includes a number of by-elections.
When you cast your vote, the vote gets processed by a system developed by Catalyst. This system performs the MMP calculations, produces the results you see on the various TV channels, provides detailed voting data to a host of media organisations, and we also host the public results website.
This is a unique project. Several years out from an election the requirements are drawn up to extend the system based findings from the previous election, changes to CEO business processes or legislative changes.
The various business processes supported by the system leading up to an election include planning and management of properties such as polling places and advanced voting facilities, personel resource management including timesheeting and payroll, project task control, expenditure management, and inventory management.
All the changes, along with their functional and load testing, must be performed and readied for one single night. The result of getting it wrong on the night would be damaging to all organisations involved!.
After election night, a period of two weeks is spent on the official count which is also managed by the election management system. This also includes management of special vote declarations and document tracking.
A multitude of statistics are produced post election by the system for the generation of official documents such as the E9 and other government gazetted information.
It's a high-pressure and stressful project, balanced by the satisfaction of getting it right, and the pride in being a part of New Zealand's democratic process.
Check you're enrolled at http://www.elections.org.nz/.