Work

Scaling and securing the UK's voter registration service

The Opportunity

Cloud computing services underpin most of online life, enabling maximum uptime, efficient performance and scalability at moments of peak network pressure. Temporary unavailability of a streaming video service or social network will generate annoyance, media attention and maybe a question or two at a shareholder meeting. But this pales into insignificance in comparison with the ability of a citizen to register to vote, where security, fast load times and high levels of uptime during demand spikes, make for a critically important infrastructure challenge.

Ensuring that every citizen can register to vote is key to our democratic process and making sure that the registration service is fit for purpose is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office, who wanted to modernize it, ensuring that it could meet large spikes in demand while reducing costs and delivering exceptional levels of security.

Our Approach

Leveraging the scalability of AWS, we migrated the service to the cloud while simultaneously updating the look and feel to align with new GDS design system and meet the latest WCAG accessibility guidelines.

With security high on the agenda, our team worked closely with the GDS cybersecurity unit and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to safeguard the service and its data and to prove the service would remain available and performant, even under very significant demand, we ran rigorous, automated load tests.

The Impact

The modernised Register to Vote service went live in 2021, capable of scaling very large, very quickly to meet both the gradual and sudden demand spikes it faces. Performance under high loads was improved while hosting costs have been significantly reduced, with the Cabinet Office only paying for the resources it consumes.

Softwire continues to provide comprehensive support for the service to ensure 99.999% availability and exceptional performance under unpredictable loads and to deliver a series of enhancements to cut costs and improve efficiency.

We have designed and developed a new API enabling Local Authorities to securely connect without needing to use the Public Services Network and have automated significant parts of the annual canvass process, reducing the administrative burden on Local Authorities and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).

Softwire has helped deliver hundreds of thousands of pounds in cost savings while ensuring 100% uptime during registration peaks and zero Priority 1 security incidents.

Since its relaunch millions of citizens have used the service to register to vote in UK elections.

Our Work