Seattle held first election with smartphone voting

[LateToCult 41,861]

(The small election already happened btw but this article goes pretty in depth)

 

SEATTLE — As it became clear that a technical mishap would delay results from the Iowa caucuses last week, Sheila Nix raced to prepare a chart illustrating how the glitch was isolated.

Nix is president of Tusk Philanthropies, an organization that’s working to boost turnout through mobile-voting projects and was not involved in the Iowa caucuses. But she has been working on a Seattle-area election that culminates Tuesday to elect a seat on the board of the King Conservation District, which promotes sustainable uses of natural resources. It is one of Tusk’s most high-profile efforts. Nix didn’t want the Iowa debacle to discourage potential voters from using their mobile phones to cast their ballots.

The chart Nix’s team created, posted on the King Conservation District’s website, noted that the technology used in Iowa, unlike Tusk’s partners, was “untested, and created in secrecy,” and that Iowa didn’t have a backup plan in the event there was a problem. But she said she also recognizes that the fiasco in Iowa was a setback for everyone working on digital elections

Mobile-voting proponents say the technology will boost election participation by making balloting available anywhere voters have phones.

It could be helpful for boosting turnout in small elections, like the one in the Seattle area, Nix said. Moreover, it could help with the current primary system, which often appeals to voters on the political extremes because they tend to be the most engaged in the process.

“We want more people to vote so we reduce the polarization,” Nix said.

The King Conservation District election is offering technology to any registered voter who wishes to cast their ballot from a mobile device or a computer. Voters can log in to a portal and vote. Their selections are then recorded in a PDF file, which election officials say will be printed to create a paper trail.

In addition to making mobile ballots available to all voters, Seattle-based Democracy Live, which is providing the voting technology, is instituting a digital signature feature for mobile devices in which voters use their fingers to sign, similar to ones used by mobile payment systems such as Square. That way, election officials can compare their signatures with the ones kept on file for each registered voter.
Full story:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/11/seattle-smartphone-voting/%3foutputType=amp

And if you want to read about what it was like using the app, this journalist wrote about her personal experience using it:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.geekwire.com/2020/voted-smartphone-seattle-area-election-discovered/amp/

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

Hm...

Mixed feelings.

Good idea, but are there paper ballot backups?

[LateToCult 41,861]

9 minutes ago, ItsTommyBitch said:

Hm...

Mixed feelings.

Good idea, but are there paper ballot backups?

Apparently a paper trail was made using the information the app sent. I’m so mad I forgot about this. I wanted to vote to see what it would be like.