along with the technology chain block for the first time in an election on Tuesday voters with disabilities will be able to cast their ballots on smartphones. But while the election officials and supporters to vote phones to say that the technology has the potential to increase access to the polls, electoral technology experts raise serious safety concerns about the idea. The mobile voting system, a collaboration between tech companies based in Boston Voatz, nonprofit philanthropic Tusk and the National Cyber Security Center has been used for some military and overseas voters during test pilots in West Virginia, Denver and Utah County, Utah previously, Utah County now expanded to include its program voters with disabilities in their local elections also. Two counties in Oregon, Jackson and Umatilla, including system drivers for military and overseas voters on Tuesday. The idea, according to Bradley Tusk, the startup consultant and philanthropist who financed the pilot is to increase voter turnout. “We can not take in the whole country on each interest group in Washington, and beat them, but I think what we can do is bottle the genie out of the can,” he says. After working in politics, Tusk made his name in the technological world from the development strategy of its customers in turn based lobbyists armies, provided that the lawyer company that would come to leave. He hopes the same tactic with mobile voting should be used. While Tusk has no financial interest in Voatz and says it is not tied to a particular technology, he believes mobile voting can work, and if he can convince Americans that enough, they want to choose their phones, he says, these voters are pressurizing her officials to adopt the method. Until now, pilots have very small small number of voters, but election officials have deemed successful. Officials of West Virginia, Denver and Utah County have with their results and were satisfied with the feedback they received from the voters. “The test that we have on the votes that were cast in our primary came back very clean. So that gave me more confidence in the system,” says Amelia Powers Gardner, Director of the Utah County / Auditor. But such concerns have increased foreign interference in the elections of 2016, the election security experts have warned against any electronic voting system. The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report this summer on Russian electoral complaints that the importance of the paper ballots to ensure America highlighted vote. “States must resist pressures for online voting,” the report reads. It is said that, while access in order to ensure, particularly in the crucial military voters “did not even established online voting system to be safe.” Independent experts agree. There is a broad consensus in the security community that the election coordination with mobile technology chain block including non-Voatz is a reliable system, according to Mark Lindeman, a senior science and technology policy officer checked Voting, a nonprofit organization which advocates for the accuracy, integrity and transparency of the elections. “We think it’s great that election officials are trying bold innovations help people vote. But we think these bold innovation for prime time is not ready,” he says. For Voatz system use, inviting voters Voatz app on their iPhone or Android smartphone. then scan the fingerprints and their identity document and take a “selfie video” to authenticate your identity before you can touch the screen to mark their digital ballot. (Voatz says that identification scans and face off shortly after they are used.) After the vote, voters received a Messenger of their choice receives its decisions were upheld properly labeled. election officials in the jurisdiction of voters also get a separate copy of the receipt, and for secure email, eFax or recording of the block “lock box” for Voatz chain. The items to be printed in the chain lock stored until the day of the election, as poll workers sign the “Block” of the portal and the ballot. This process is much faster and potentially more secure as a military and overseas voters currently pose their vote, Powers says Gardner. may vary during state laws, Americans living abroad usually cast their vote by post, fax or e-mail, in many cases not guaranteed. Sending e-mail is at the international level is not always reliable and can take weeks to complete, while the e-mail items are vulnerable to hackers and require overseas or military voters to give up their right to a private vote. For disabled voters, possibly a vote could on their smartphones Casting a turning point, says Michelle Bishop, the voting rights specialist at the National Disability Rights Network. Right now, people with disabilities are faced with in every part of the reconciliation process. technically required during the Americans with Disabilities Act that people with disabilities have access to public services, programs and activities such as voting, it is not well defined. It also works if the polls are accessible voting machines, you could get as steps in building or other obstacles that election officials do not know how to work the machine accessible. If the Government Accountability Office examined accessibility election after the elections in 2016, it found only 17% of the seats had checked outside or inside the voting unhindered. “This is scary and miserable,” says the Bishop. Meanwhile, more and more people have smartphones and mobile technology has done a good job of introducing accessible functions. Cell phones can increase user on their screens, increasing the text size, read the contents of the screen aloud and operate the device through voice commands, all voters can help with a range of disabilities. The National Network Disability Rights does not support certain electronic voting, but the bishop has described Voatz and other applications such as “incredibly promising.” Still, she takes seriously the security concerns. “Voters with disabilities want the elections fairly and correctly and safely and for the integrity of the process as any other voter to have,” says Bishop. “I believe in testing and certification. I believe that this view of technologies for this purpose in the control if you want to go for reasons of accessibility to work and to” ensure that secure it. Say the problem, security experts, is that it is almost impossible for third parties that the company has published Voatz system is secure and precise to check with the level of information. Voatz has published a white paper eight pages after its pilots West Virginia in 2018, but did not name the four independent safety inspectors, who could assess the pilot or go into detail about what the Mayor access to information and what vulnerabilities if those were hard. more detailed reports came this summer in Denver and Utah County first pilot, but the ones that provide a complete picture, but experts say. While Voatz co-founder and CEO Nimit Sawhney says his system, the first is that “the verification and end-to-end traceability allows one remote voting scenario,” other options experts dispute this. Votes cast Voatz to control, election officials printing to provide “Paper Selection” and compare it with a copy of “voter verified digital receipts” is created when the votes were cast. Officials can compare these to the results of the tabulation and data stored in the information chain lock. “So what’s missing? Almost everything, says:” Mark Lindeman weighted rating. “We have really no way to know that what the voters have seen the same thing that the Secretary of State office looks. This is the means not only that the control voters.” Voatz promotes the use of chain for greater safety lock, because the entries are stored in geographically distributed servers, and not in one place. But experts say that this offers little comfort. “Chain Block the word of the moment order,” said Buell Duncan, a professor of computer science at the University of South Carolina, the technologies and studied voting, co-author have a May document the many concerns that election experts on Voatz have detailing. “Everyone, no matter what they do is going to pretend that make the chain lock because this is sexy and exciting and brilliant sound.” Tusk Philanthropies, in turn, experts hired outside security Voatz auditing and security procedures to control. Andre McGregor, co-founder of shifting State Security, said the time he and his team do about three weeks spent Voatz after West Virginia driver occurs, and that he planned a further review later this year. “I’ve been good results,” said McGregor. Voatz has also worked with the Department of Homeland Security to carry out his system of the test worked and Sawhney says that business plans in these tests and its software over the next few months to publish more detailed information. He understands the need for security questions, he says, but adds that as a private company also has to protect its intellectual property. Meanwhile, election experts, government officials and disability advocates leave the tension between accessibility and safety of navigation something approaching just as the 2020 elections will increase. “What I do not dissolved in any context, to make such verification itself accessible,” says Lindeman. “And we have to deal with him to keep as a really difficult problem that deserves good solutions. I do not have the answer. All I know is that I have not yet seen.” by Getty Images Photo copyright
Smartphone voting could extend accessibility, but electoral experts raise concerns about safety
