ETA Team
ETA consultants have practical experience of assignments for electoral administrations planning and implementing systems supporting public election processes.
Alastair James
Alastair James is a founding director of ETA. He has a degree in economics and computer science from the University of Edinburgh, and over twenty five years consulting experience in the ICT industry. This includes strategy, policy, technology planning and implementation, business and industry development projects for public and private sector clients.
Since 2010, Alastair has undertaken a number of projects for the Electoral Commission in New South Wales, Australia, including strategy and business case development, tender preparation and project management for systems supporting election processes.
As part of the NSW Electoral Commission iVote® project team, he provided planning, procurement, project and implementation management throughout the two-year project to develop and implement an enhanced online and telephone voting system. This experience includes hands-on operational management of the iVote® system in both by-elections and the 2015 state general election.
Other projects in electoral systems include roll management and election funding and disclosure.
Ian Brightwell
Ian Brightwell is a Principal with ETA. His qualifications include Master of Applied Science in Information Systems from the University of Technology – Sydney, and Master of Engineering Science from University of NSW. He is an experienced Chief Information Officer and Director of Information Technology, and was CIO for the NSW Electoral Commission from 2005 to April 2016. Previously he was a consultant in a variety of assignments for state and federal government agencies and for private sector organisations. His responsibilities in these engagements included management of significant IT programs, and technology management and governance with a focus on cyber security.
Ian’s relevant experience derives from his role as Director of Information Technology and CIO for the NSW Electoral Commission (originally the State Electoral Office), and previously as a consultant to the organisation. He was responsible for the implementation and support of all the information system infrastructure and selected IT related business operations, and advised the Electoral Commissioner on ICT governance issues and defined and managed the Commission’s IT security posture.
His key achievements included development and management of the iVote® system to support NSW’s Technology Assisted Voting initiative for the 2011 and 2015 State General Election and by elections as well as design and development of most of the electoral and related systems currently used by the Commission.
Errol Kruger
Errol Kruger is a Principal with Election Technology Associates. He holds a post-graduate certificate in Managing IT Projects (George Washington University) and a Bachelor of Arts (ANU). He has wide experience of planning and implementing digital systems in public and private sector organisations.
Errol has acted as an expert advisor and leader of projects that require business assurance to protect private data in design, planning, upgrade and transition to digital platforms. As consultant to Federal and State authorities including ATO, Services Australia and Joint Cyber Security Centre, he advocates ethical use of data, access restrictions to private data and protection across its entire life-cycle.
Errol’s experience of election related systems includes engagement by the NSW Electoral Commission to manage redevelopment of a system to support reporting of electoral funding and expenditures by candidates, political parties and others with a disclosure obligation under new legislation. This involved integration of information from other electoral systems.
Errol leads an industry partnership with the University of Strathclyde to democratise community participation in local government adoption of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). An output of this research is performance criteria for voter systems for Council transparency in priority setting and citizen feedback to vote on progress. Councils will be able to select from open systems to connect registered voters with day-to-day business between elections. This capability is helping Councils positively channel high levels of community activism for progress on the SDG’s.
Consulting teams
ETA establishes consulting teams according to the requirements of each project. Available consulting resources include the full range of technical skills and experience likely to be required in projects for electoral authorities
- requirements analysis and preparation of functional specifications
- technical architecture
- cryptography
- security architecture, design, planning and operations
- infrastructure design and implementation
- testing, quality management and audit
- disaster recovery planning and implementation
- change management, training and operational procedures.
International advisors
ETA has links with a number of acknowledged international experts in online voting system design, cryptography, system audit and security. These associates are resident in Europe, the USA and Australia, and are available to provide specialist inputs to projects as required.