System and method for use of lottery terminals as electronic voting mechanisms

A lottery terminal, comprising:

• an input device configured to receive information from a user, said information being representative of initial voting input data from the user;
• a terminal controller operatively coupled to said input device, said terminal controller comprising a processor and a memory operatively coupled to said processor;
• an output device for providing information to the user;
• and
• a network interface for communicatively coupling said lottery terminal to a network;
• wherein said memory comprises computer-readable instructions accessible by said processor for programming said terminal controller to process the initial voting input data received from the user and store as electronic data.

A lottery gaming system configured to selectively function as a voting system, comprising:

• a plurality of terminal units, each terminal unit comprising:
• an input device configured to receive information from a user, said information being representative of initial voting input data from the user;
• a terminal controller operatively coupled to said input device, said terminal controller comprising a processor and a memory operatively coupled to said processor;
• an output device for providing information to the user;
• and
• a network interface for communicatively coupling said lottery terminal to a network;
• wherein said memory comprises computer-readable instructions accessible by said processor for programming said terminal controller to (i) toggle between functional processing of voting data and gaming data;
• and (ii) process the initial voting input data received from the user and store as electronic data.