Unisys plans to overhaul US voting process

Unisys has joined with Microsoft and Dell to develop a hi-tech voting system to replace the US's antiquated ballot-counting machines.

Unisys plans to replace the outdated systems which produced irregularities such as those reported in Florida during November's US Presidential elections.

Dubbed e-@ction Election Solutions, the system will integrate election management, voter registration, identification, ballot casting and tabulation and results reporting.

Unisys will act as an integrator of the various technologies that will be used to create the voting system. Microsoft will create the software to operate the system, while Dell will supply the computers, touch-screen monitors and keyboards.

Kevin Curry, vice president and general manager of Unisys's North America public sector unit, said: "with the Unisys e-@ction we will be able to customise our voting solutions to the particular needs of a state or county. We can provide any of the discrete pieces of the process that states or counties want in the way that will work best for them."

Unisys recently partnered with Minnesota's Secretary of State to develop an e-voting system. The company has also implemented electronic voting systems for Brazil, the city of Rome and Costa Rica. In each case, the electronic voting systems were designed to integrate smoothly with the existing databases of citizen information.

Last November's tight presidential race between George W Bush and Al Gore raised doubts about the accuracy of the vote count in Florida and other states. It led to angry calls from federal, state and local officials, as well as voter organisations, to overhaul the election process.