Chicago, IL – Cook County, the 2nd largest US County by Population, has selected Catalyst Consulting Group to develop a custom Election Judge Management System (EJMS).
For two elections every year, the county must mobilize a temporary workforce of over 12,500 election judges and polling place workers to 2,000 precinct locations. The county must involve committeemen from the two major parties in the selection and assignment of these judges to their precincts. The county sought to integrate this complex assignment process into a single software system that would also manage recruitment, training, oversight, evaluation, and payroll functions for the election judge workforce.
Cook County had also requested that the vendor community consider a system based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform. Dynamics CRM’s underlying ability to capture any custom data model and work-flow is an efficient way to build any relational line-of-business application, not just CRM applications. The name “Dynamics XRM” has emerged within the Microsoft Partner community to describe systems built on the underlying platform of Microsoft Dynamics CRM after most of the Customer Relationship templates have been stripped away.
Catalyst’s solution will combine the Microsoft Dynamics XRM platform with a set of custom developed .NET user controls and plug-ins. The solution also involves the development of a custom ASP.NET interface to be used by committeemen to recommend and review precinct assignments when they log in to the County’s public website. The public website component will leverage Dynamics XRM’s external data connectors.
Catalyst has successfully developed numerous software systems for Cook County Clerk divisions and has substantial subject matter expertise in election systems. For its subject matter expertise in the Dynamics CRM platform, Catalyst selected Sonoma Partners LLC as part of its team in pursuing the EJMS project. Sonoma Partners is an internationally recognized Microsoft Dynamics Partner whose principals have authored books from Microsoft Press on the Dynamics platform. The Catalyst team was ultimately selected from among 4 finalist bidders after multiple oral presentations and proof-of-concept demonstrations. The system is planned for production prior to the 2010 November election cycle.
About Catalyst
Founded in 1992, Catalyst Consulting Group, Inc. is a Chicago based management and IT services consulting firm primarily serving the needs of State and Local governments as well as private sector companies. Branch offices include Springfield, Illinois and Indianapolis, Indiana. www.catconsult.com.
Catalyst Press Contact:
Travis Bloomfield
Catalyst Consulting Group, Inc.
312-629-0750
travis.bloomfield@catconsult.com