Unisyn Voting Solutions Open Elect Voting Central Scan is a high-speed digital ballot scanning system used to process paper ballots. It is commonly used to scan absentee by-mail ballots, and is typically implemented in a centralized elections office, where it is operated by authorized elections staff.

OVCS consists of proprietary software installed on a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) PC workstation, which is integrated with an attached, batch-fed COTS scanner.

While scanning ballots and interpreting voter marks, the OVCS software can identify also ballots that the system believes require additional attention (e.g., no selections; write-ins; too many or too few choices marked), and OVCS will stop the attached scanner to allow elections staff to remove the ballot for further review, as necessary. After “valid” ballots have been scanned, and all “invalid” ballots resolved, the OVCS software can write Cast Vote Records for the batches scanned, and tabulate results.

Unisyn also offers the OVCS mini, a smaller less expensive, portable batch-fed scanner. The OVCS mini runs the same proprietary Unisyn software on a COTS PC workstation but with a smaller COTS scanner, which accommodates a range of ballot sizes and ranked choice voting (RCV).

Unisyn OpenElect system demonstration from Cerro Gordo County, IA

Unisyn OpenElect vendor demonstration Lebanon County, PA

Unisyn Voting Solutions OpenElect OVCS usage in November 2022 (click for details)

References

Unisyn OVS 2.2 Test Plan Review (2020)