RFP - IT - Election Management System

The City of Minneapolis is soliciting proposals under RFP 2026-90 for a turn-key, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service election management system for its Elections & Voter Services department, with written questions due November 13, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. Minneapolis time and proposals due December 22, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. Minneapolis time. The City anticipates no Small & Underutilized Business Program goals on this contract and encourages contractors to provide full and fair subcontracting opportunities to MBEs and WBEs, recognized only when certified through the Central Certification Program (CERT). Contractors must also meet non-discrimination requirements, maintain an approved Affirmative Action Plan for contracts over $100,000, and comply with the Living Wage Ordinance for contracts valued at $100,000 or more.

The system must support election worker lifecycle management, polling place management, inventory and chain-of-custody tracking, reporting, and SAML-based single sign-on. Functional requirements span Admin & Operations (30), Inventory (19), Polling Place Management (28), Workers & Training (44), and Campaign Finance (23). The platform must be hosted on a valid, registered domain without thick or thin clients, maintain 99.99% uptime, and meet a 24-hour recovery point objective and 4-hour recovery time. All City data must remain within the continental United States and be fully separated from other customers' data. Security requirements include OWASP-aligned controls, encryption at rest and in transit, annual third-party penetration testing, and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA compliance. Evaluation includes adherence to cybersecurity requirements, including SOC 2 Type 2 certification within the past 12 months. Required insurance includes commercial general liability and professional liability of $2 million each and cyber liability of $1 million per occurrence and $2 million annual aggregate. Bidders must provide three current and three former customer references and mark each capability as standard, requiring customization, or unavailable.

The City intends to award a single contract for an initial three-year term, with options to extend annually for two additional years at the City's sole discretion. Pricing must be submitted through a separate seven-year cost template with four mandatory tables, and hourly rates must be guaranteed for the contract duration. The City may reject proposals that omit required costs. Bids are accepted in U.S. dollars only, and the software delivery date is December 23, 2026.

Evaluation criteria include proposal quality, staff qualifications, financial capacity, organization and management approach, cost, compatibility with existing infrastructure, solution scalability, implementation ease, and exceptions to the City's terms and conditions. An Evaluation Panel of Elections & Voter Services and other City staff will conduct the review, and selected consultants may be invited to presentations and demonstrations. Responses to questions will be posted by November 25, 2026, and consultant selection is estimated for the first quarter of 2027. Proposals must be submitted electronically through the eSupplier Portal, and late submissions will not be accepted.