RFI_CampFinance_ElectionsFilingSystem.pdf

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REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Campaign Finance/Election Filing System OregonBuys No. S-16500-00011769

Release Date: October 10, 2024

1. PURPOSE

The State of Oregon, acting by and through the Secretary of State’s Office, Elections Division (Agency) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to business entities/individuals qualified to provide information and industry feedback for a Campaign Finance/Election Filing System. Agency may use the information obtained from this RFI to solicit bids for a solution that is most advantageous to the Agency through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process.

This RFI shall in no way be interpreted as an RFP and any information obtained as a result of this RFI may or may not be used by the Agency to develop a future RFP.

Interested business entities/individuals shall submit their information package via OregonBuys, https://oregonbuys.gov/ no later than October 28, 2024 at 5:00 PM PST. Questions related to this

RFI shall be submitted via OregonBuys.

2. BACKGROUND

The Oregon Secretary of State is one of three constitutional offices created at statehood. As an independent constitutional officer, the Secretary of State answers directly and solely to the people of Oregon. The

Elections Division is responsible for the general administration of elections within the state, including regulating campaign finance, administering candidate ballot access, and producing the state voters’ pamphlet. The Elections Division is also responsible for investigating alleged violations of Oregon election law and for enforcing the law when violations are found.

The existing Campaign Finance/Election Filing System (ORESTAR, Oregon Election System for

Tracking and Reporting, https://secure.sos.state.or.us/orestar/) is a web-based system implemented in

2005/2006. It has an Oracle relational database back-end and uses Oracle Weblogic. It is primarily written in Java with Javascript and Oracle PL/SQL as major components. The application is administered by the

Elections Division and supported by the Information Systems Division (ISD) of the Oregon Secretary of

State’s Office. The primary functionality of the current ORESTAR system includes campaign finance filer registration (political committees, independent expenditure filers), campaign finance reporting, candidate filing, voters’ pamphlet filing and pamphlet production, contact management, online voter registration, My Vote (voter information, ballot status, elected officials, etc.), public search, etc.

https://oregonbuys.gov/ https://secure.sos.state.or.us/orestar/

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Recent changes to campaign finance laws in the 2024 legislative session (HB 4024, https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2024R1/Measures/Overview/HB4024) require significant changes to the campaign finance related components of the ORESTAR system. This legislation requires new functionality be in place by January 1, 2027. As part of this change effort, the Agency aims to modernize the application and move away from Oracle components. A new statewide voter registration and election management system (ORVIS) is scheduled for implementation in 2025 and will replace the online voter registration and My Vote components of the current ORESTAR application.

3. PROJECT OBJECTIVE

The Agency’s project objective is to replace and modernize the existing ORESTAR system with enhanced features that include, but are not limited to, the legislative changes related to campaign finance

(HB 4024). Below are the needs the Agency intends to fulfill with a new Campaign Finance/Election

Filing System. Components or services may be included or omitted depending on the results of this RFI, and the Agency may choose any or none of the services below in any future solicitation.

Functionality

A replacement of the ORESTAR system would include, at a minimum, the following functional components. This list provides a high-level description of requested features and is not intended as a comprehensive list of functional requirements for a fully functional Campaign Finance/Election Filing

System.

System scope:

- The solution shall (but not be limited to):

o Registration of Campaign Finance Filers

▪ Allow candidates and political committees to file Statements of Organization.

▪ Allow registration by non-committee filers (e.g., Membership Organizations, Independent Expenditure Filers).

▪ Allow registered filers to amend registration information or discontinue a registration.

▪ Allow internal staff to review registration filings; communicate acceptance or insufficiencies to filer.

o Campaign Finance Transactions

▪ Handle continuous, transaction-based, reporting with each transaction having its own calculated deadline.

▪ Allow political committees to report financial transactions (e.g., contributions, expenditures, loans, independent expenditures, in-kinds).

▪ Allow non-committee filers to report financial transactions, including information about the original source of their funds.

▪ Allow financial transactions to be amended or deleted.

▪ Allow both data entry and upload of digital files for reporting financial transactions.

▪ Allow internal staff to review transactions and identify insufficiencies and communicate review results to filer; calculate deadlines for staff review and calculate due dates for satisfying insufficiencies.

▪ Allow filers to search, view, and export their financial transaction activity.

https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2024R1/Measures/Overview/HB4024

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▪ Allow filers to validate transactions prior to filing.

▪ Track contribution limits for appropriate periods (election cycle, election, and calendar year) based on committee type, and track exemptions to limits.

▪ Calculate calendar year aggregates for all contributors and payees and aggregate transactions that are not publicly disclosable.

▪ Allow committees to opt out of using system aggregate calculation, and calculate and report own contributor/payee aggregates.

▪ Allow committees to file and amend a Certificate of Limited Contributions and

Expenditures and statement of limited activity.

▪ Summarize financial activity onto an account summary page by calendar year.

o Violations / Case Management

▪ Flag financial transactions for late and insufficient violations and generate cases on periodic schedule; review process for potential violations by internal staff.

▪ Allow registered voters to file requests for investigations and upload evidentiary documents in a variety of file formats; review process for internal staff to determine appropriate action (i.e., non-complaint, declination, open case).

▪ Allow internal staff to manually add cases or add potential violations to existing case.

▪ Generate, track and calculate deadlines for case actions.

▪ Assist in the generation of case letters.

▪ Detect other possible violations based on dynamic criteria and allow internal staff review (e.g., appropriate disclosure by both parties involved in a committee-to-committee contribution).

▪ Allow committees to pay penalties for violations.

▪ Provide tracking and management process for advice letters.

▪ Allow the public to search for and get status of cases.

o Candidate Filing

▪ Allow a candidate to file a declaration of candidacy and pay the appropriate fee.

▪ Allow a candidate to file a prospective petition, in lieu of a fee filing, and generate the document used for gathering signatures.

▪ Allow a candidate to amend or withdraw a declaration of candidacy.

▪ Allow internal staff to enter declarations submitted using a paper filing form.

▪ Allow internal staff to review filing and approve or communicate insufficiencies.

▪ Allow process for managing vacancies and filling vacancies.

o Voters’ Pamphlet Filing

▪ Allow a user to file a voters’ pamphlet statement (e.g., candidate statement, measure argument) and pay the appropriate fee.

▪ Allow a user to file a prospective petition, in lieu of a fee filing, and generate the document used for gathering signatures.

▪ Allow a user to amend or withdraw a voters’ pamphlet filing.

▪ Allow formatted statements including bolding, underlining, italics, etc.

▪ Allow documents (e.g., images, PDFs, word documents) to be uploaded as part of the filing.

▪ Produce an HTML voters’ guide, including all content submitted for the voters’ pamphlet.

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▪ Manage content for and assist in the production of the 19 editions of the printed voters’ pamphlet including, but not limited to, tracking tools, reports, and files that can be imported into Adobe InDesign.

o Public Search / Transparency Dashboard

▪ Allow the public to search campaign finance filer registration information, including history.

▪ Allow the public to search all financial activity reported by filers, including history.

▪ Allow the public to search candidate filings.

▪ Allow the public to search and view local measure information.

▪ Allow the public to view and export search results, including large datasets.

▪ Create of a web-based campaign finance dashboard on periodic schedule that includes numeric and visual representations of campaign finance activity. Must include but not be limited to:

• 100 largest contributors to candidate committees, aggregated across all candidates.

• Visual representation of contributions by industry aggregated across all candidates and broken down by statewide, legislative, and local office.

• Original source of funds of candidate campaign independent expenditures.

• Annually display the average cost of campaigns by office and the largest three spending categories broken down by office category.

o Reporting

▪ Provide pre-built reports for internal staff to run/view/print/export or make available to the public.

▪ Allow internal staff the ability to build custom reports to run/view/print/export or make available to the public.

▪ Allow internal users to save custom built reports for future use.

o Contact Management

▪ Allow internal staff to send emails via system or document phone/in-person conversations with constituents.

▪ Associate communications with committees, cases, etc., when appropriate.

▪ Generate automated notifications (e.g., filing receipts, upload validation reports, etc.)

▪ Allow internal staff to search, view, and export all communications.

o User Management

▪ CIAM (customer identity and access management) integration.

▪ Ability to maintain user and role history.

▪ Provide role and permission based access, managed by an authorized internal user.

▪ Allow for delegated authority (e.g., candidate can assign role to committee treasurer).

o Other General Components

▪ Generate random alphabetical order for each candidate election.

▪ Apply logic to certify candidates to the ballot, apply random alpha order, and generate certified ballot documents.

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▪ Include audit tracking capabilities providing records logs, change logs, and date/time/user stamps.

▪ Manage confidential addresses and contact information.

▪ Allow for management of look up table values by authorized internal users, such as elections, offices, parties, person types, etc.

▪ Allow for management of required fields on filings by authorized internal users.

▪ Display system status and analytics information to authorized internal users (e.g., server status, current number of internal/external/public users, batch processing status, browser and device usage, failed processes/exceptions).

▪ Be capable of interfacing with other Agency applications.

- Excludes (parts of current ORESTAR application that will not be needed in the replacement system):

o My Vote & online voter registration.

o Interface with DMV and background processing related to voter registration.

Interface & Accessibility

• Application capability for all modern browsers (including but not limited to Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, Opera, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Aloha, etc.).

• Application capability for mobile and desktop.

• A modern and user-friendly interface.

• Application meets and complies with all web/mobile accessibility standards, regulations, and laws.

• Solution must include complete online user documentation and user guide (both for Agency staff and public usage).

• Application must include secure multi-tab and multi-browser controls to ensure data security and integrity.

Non-Functional

• Highly secure (meets or exceeds all NIST standards for elections).

• It is preferred that the application employs RABET-V testing standards for system validation.

• If the application is hosted in a cloud, it must be a FedRAMP authorized cloud service (E.g., Azure Government Cloud).

• Highly available (99.99% or higher).

• Internal data redundancy (replication or other technology).

• Data warehouse for reporting and extract usage.

• Included security components.

• Web based and client/service interface.

• All code development must be done (or have been done) in the US by persons authorized to work in the US.

• Offsite backups (multi-location for cloud-based solution).

• Data retention must comply with Oregon state policies.

• Application must include automated regression testing built into the code base.

• Code and all critical components (e.g. credentials, documentation, scripts, etc.) required for administration of the implementation would need to be provided in an escrow account.

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Special Requirements if the Proposed Solution is a Custom Build

• Must be deployed in Azure Government Cloud.

• Preferred primary development languages include C#, Python, Java, and Javascript.

• Preferred relational database is Azure SQL Database (PostgreSQL or SQL Server are potential alternatives).

• Use of a modern front-end framework such as React, Vue.js, or Angular.

Delivery

• Data must be migrated from the current ORESTAR system into the new system as part of implementation.

• System must be delivered in phases for testing with the full system in place for testing (including

UAT) no later than July 1, 2026.

• System must be in production for general use no later than January 1, 2027.

• Training of Agency staff required to use the system (and maintain if proposed).

• Acceptable proposed solutions may be supported and operated by the vendor, by Agency, or some combination.

4. SUBMITTAL INFORMATION

Business entities/individuals may provide a response for a COTS/customized COTS product for all or some components or for a custom build for some or all the components.

Please provide the following information in response to this RFI:

Product Description

For a COTS product (or customized COTS product), provide the product name(s) and description to include, but not limited to the following requirements:

• Compliance with the list of functionality requirements from section 3 of this document. Provide a list of functional components/features/capacities that currently exist in the application and provide a list of functional components/features/capacities that will need to be developed (custom development), if any.

• Comprehensive list of development toolset (languages, libraries, web/application servers, operating systems, etc.).

• Identify what utilized code, libraries are open source.

• Identify the database(s) supported including preferred database if more than one option.

• Hosting options (e.g., Agency hosted on Agency servers, vendor hosted on vendor hardware, Agency managed cloud hosted, vendor managed cloud hosted, etc.)

o If vendor, the physical location of the data center providing the service.

o If cloud hosted, specifics on the cloud vendor including, but not limited to service provider name, multi-zone options, minimal hardware configurations, etc.

• Client browsers supported and not supported.

• Mobile access mechanisms and capabilities.

• Specify mechanisms used to ensure system and system data security.

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• Specify mechanisms used to ensure system availability.

For a custom developed solution, provide the following details, including but not limited to the following requirements:

• Comprehensive list of functionality requirements from section 3 of this document that would be satisfied with this custom development.

• Comprehensive list of proposed development toolset (languages, libraries, web/application servers, operating systems, etc.).

• Identify what utilized code, libraries are open source are planned to be used in the proposed solution.

• Identify the possible database(s) that would be utilized in the solution including preferred database if more than one option.

• Hosting options (E.g., Agency hosted on Agency servers, vendor hosted on vendor hardware, Agency managed cloud hosted, vendor managed cloud hosted, etc.).

• If vendor, the physical location of the data center providing the service.

• If cloud hosted, specifics on the cloud vendor including, but not limited to service provider name, multi-zone options, minimal hardware configurations, etc.

• Proposed client browsers supported (and not supported).

• Proposed mobile access mechanisms and capabilities.

• What mechanisms would be put in place to ensure system and system data security.

• What mechanisms would be put in place to ensure system availability.

System Functionality

For a COTS product (or customized COTS product), briefly describe how your solution manages the following:

• Compliance with the list of functionality requirements from section 3 of this document - List of functional components/features/capacities the application that currently exist and list those functional components/features/capacities that will need to be developed (custom development), if any.

• How each functional requirement and non-functional requirement is met or will be met.

• How data will be migrated into the vendor’s solution.

• How the vendor will manage and accommodate future changes (including legislative driven and

Agency initiated).

• Reporting capabilities, including ad-hoc reporting.

For a custom developed solution, provide the following details, but not limited to the following requirements:

• How each functional requirement and non-functional requirement is met or will be met.

• How data will be migrated into the vendor’s solution.

• How the vendor will manage and accommodate future changes (including legislative driven and

Agency initiated).

• Proposed reporting capabilities, including ad-hoc reporting.

• Estimated development schedule.

System Installation

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Briefly describe how your solution addresses the following:

• Describe initial and on-going support services available.

• Describe processes that would allow for internal system integration and seamless implementation with the Agency’s (ORVIS, voter registration and election management) system.

• Describe the typical implementation process and schedule. Provide information regarding the time and resources the Agency would expect to provide during implementation.

• Describe your typical training recommendation for an implementation of similar size and scope.

Describe available training programs and methods for training end-users and divisional personnel.

Expectations of Agency

Please list all expectations of Agency as part of the development, testing, and deployment of the proposed solution to include, but not limited to the following:

• Solution documentation

• Provide access and facilitate transfer of existing ORESTAR data as part of the migration effort

• Expected staffing needs for each segment of the project o Development o Testing o Implementation o Maintenance and operations

• Any special training requirements for maintenance, management, and operation tasks that would be assumed by Agency

Estimated Cost

Please provide a response to include, but not limited to the following:

• Licensing costs for COTS solution (including initial and periodic costs) and costs for customization, or development costs for a custom solution.

• Describe licensing models (purchase vs. subscription) and associated costs.

• If proposal includes maintenance, operations, and/or support, include annual costs.

o Costs may be broken down to indicate the services that are being offered.

o Please describe support model related to these costs.

o If there are any volume related costs associated with operations, please explain and quantify.

• Any other associated costs the Agency should consider.

Additional Information

Provide any additional, relevant information that will aid the Agency in its evaluation of future solicitations for this project.