2017 General Voter Registration System (GVRS) Learning Clinic Brisbane, Australia

Written by
Pianzea Secretariat
Tuesday, 20 February 2018 11:51
2017 General Voter Registration System (GVRS) Learning Clinic Brisbane, Australia

2017 General Voter Registration System (GVRS) Learning Clinic

The 2017 GVRS Learning Clinic was held in Brisbane, Australia from 21 to 25 August. The PIANZEA GVRS is a software package designed to support most Voter Registration system requirements of Election Management Bodies (EMB) in countries with small to medium populations. The software is structured so that additional EMB specific requirements can be met with minimal cost and risk through a mixture user configuration, system configuration and targeted software customisation.

Countries that participated in the clinic included Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia. The clinic was arranged following a request at the PIANZEA Advisory Group meeting in March 2017.

The clinic covered the following topics

- IT governance;

- GVRS deployment options, including customisation and remote access;

- Elector data entry and maintenance;

- GVRS reporting and output options;

- ID card products and software packages; and

- Biometric components and usage.


In addition to the presentation content, Australian Electoral Commission GVRS experts, Mr Peter Dry and Dr David Carr provided country specific technical support and customisation services.

A number of PIANZEA member countries had small enhancements and data issues that they wished to see addressed. These changes were undertaken as a background activity with the User Acceptance Testing (UAT), release and installation of the software changes serving as practical training in some of the governance topics covered earlier.

This was the third clinic with previous clinics held in 2013 and 2014. The clinics provide an opportunity for users of the system to discuss questions, implement upgrades and customisation, learn about potential areas for expansion and ways to better govern information technology software and hardware in their EMB.

Attendees also had the opportunity to network with representatives from across the region. There is a strong desire for future clinics.