Technical Writer

Job Description
The Wisconsin Elections Commission is charged under Wisconsin Statutes to administer and enforce Wisconsin's elections laws. A core mission of the Commission is to ensure ongoing and quality education, training, outreach, technical assistance, and advice to municipal clerks, county clerks, and local election inspectors (poll workers) that conduct elections as well as to ensure adherence to, and compliance with Wisconsin election laws and required procedures. Another core function of the Commission is to provide current and accurate information to the public as well as various governmental and other organizations about the State's electoral processes, voting statistics, and trends.

Under the supervision of the IT Project Manager and IT Director, this position functions as part of the Information Technology team and is a resource for developers and elections specialists. This position will develop a high-level working knowledge of federal and state election laws, administrative rules and business processes in order to effectively interpret and apply these requirements to all types of elections technology used throughout the state and provide well organized and thoroughly documented business requirements.

The position also works in and provides services regarding Wisconsin's statewide voter registration system called WisVote, which is a database of voter and election information as well as a primary tool for administration of elections in the state. This position is a resource for developers and WisVote elections specialists who continuously improve the system with regular deployments that must be fully documented.

The main responsibility of this position is to review, revise, and prepare technical documentation for agency systems including WisVote, the voter website MyVote.wi.gov, Wisconsin's electronic poll book software BadgerBooks, Wisconsin's data request site BadgerVoters, Wisconsin's election results reporting module Canvass, and other Wisconsin election technology.

This position requires compliance with the agency's timekeeping system to ensure that tasks performed qualify under federal funding guidelines or that work representing State initiatives is tracked contemporaneously and is properly accounted for using State funds.

Duties and Responsibilities

A. Serve as a member of the agency's information technology team and maintain internal election technology documentation.

1. Develop and maintain a high-level working knowledge of all elections laws governing responsibilities of state and local election officials and voters, as it relates to information technology systems.

2. With guidance from other staff, communicate with elections specialists, developers, project manager, the IT Director, and other state agencies, gather information from subject matter experts to develop, organize, and write comprehensive internal documentation that meets organizational standards.

1. Research, outline, write, and edit new and existing user stories, working closely with various departments to understand project requirements.

1. Work with development and support leads to identify all documentation repositories, revise and edit, and determine the best solution for data compilation and centralized storage.