US Vote Blog

URGENT MEMORANDUM

March 21, 2020

To the Honorable Chairman Roy Blunt and Senate Rules Committee Members:

As Chairman of U.S. Vote Foundation, I urge you to personally support, and to call for all Senators to embrace the role and responsibility of the federal government to ensure that all states...

On March 18, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Senators Klobuchar (D-MN) and Wyden (D-OR) introduced Senate Bill 3529, the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act (NDEBA) of 2020. [US Vote Bill Summary]

The bill intends to provide a timely and "commonsense solution" to our ability to...

Primary Election / Caucus Voting Checklist - Being an active voter means never taking your rights or your current status on the voter roll for granted. Choosing which candidate is your party's nominee is the most crucial decision of every election. Make sure you weigh-in with your vote.

Make this a "no surprises" voting year and take the following steps on the U.S. Vote Foundation (US Vote) site... read more!

As faithful blog readers, you've figured out that we are concerned about online voting apps, particularly unverified systems being pushed with the smokescreen of "blockchain" as the miracle cure to the security issues around internet voting. The Blockchain Papers series was created with the aim of collecting expert statements on this topic.

Here is the latest contribution to the series - no less than an actual security analysis of a certain blockchain system, Voatz, executed by a group of experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). You will find this analysis fascinating; in particular, the exposure of the use of third parties for voter authentication and the potential privacy violations that may ensue.

The year is 2040 and today is election day. Alice is on her way to where she will vote, but it’s not the polls. The polls are open, but more out of adherence to a national tradition and heritage rather than utility. Alice still hears about people going to the polls in some places, mostly to protest what has come to be, but the media always portrays those folks as “tinfoil hat wearers.” These days, almost everyone votes remotely from the devices installed within their hands. Although history may see it as a small technical change, remote voting brought about radical changes to U.S. democracy.

35 million. 70 million. 140 million. 250 million.

What do all these numbers have in common? If your first thought was that they have something to do with voting, you’re on the right track. And if you think these numbers have something to do with U.S. Vote Foundation’s (US Vote) role in getting out the vote, you’re even closer.

Although local politics often doesn’t make the news, it certainly impacts us with equal weight as does national politics. As a way to offer a tangible contribution to local political efforts, I volunteered to work on local campaigns for county-level and town-level candidates. In national politics, messaging seems to happen through social media, national news, and news articles. On the local level, the success of messaging relies on meeting voters in person.

This was one of my concerns entering this process. I feared that people would be un-receptive at the door which would make the canvassing door-to-door a frightening feat – this ultimately was not the case.

How to Decimate the Overseas and Military Vote

A tremendous investment and many improvements have been made to overseas and military voting processes since the 2004 General Election and the ensuing military ballot counting fiasco. The federal law that governs the rights of overseas and military...

One can hardly throw a brick in Silicon Valley these days without hitting the CEO of a new blockchain startup. Whether it be cyber security, supply chain management, voting, or most anything else, it doesn’t matter what the question is. The answer is blockchain.

As the characters in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy discovered, knowing the ultimate answer isn’t much good without knowing the question. But there is no question associated with blockchain....