Exactly Who is Delivering Postal Ballots? and Do We Care?

Feb 7th, 2013 by E. John Sebes

An esteemed colleague noted the news of the USPS stopping weekend delivery, as part of a trend of slow demise of the USPS, and asked: will we get to the point where vote-by-mail is vote-by-Fedex? And would that be bad, having a for-profit entity acting as the custodian for a large chunk of the ballots [...]

Tags: ballots, internet voting, overseas voting, paper ballot, security, vote by mail

Long Lines to Vote: Progressive, Conservative, Net-head, Bell-head

Feb 5th, 2013 by E. John Sebes

I hate to see news outlets casting in a partisan political view the issues of voter registration and ready access to the voting booth. But don’t give up on the NYT article Waiting Times at Ballot Boxes Draw Scrutiny despite its partisan lead sentence. I rarely do political commentary, but I’ll to a little today, [...]

Tags: accessibility, election technology, voter registration

Jeffrey Valjean Cook, 1956 – 2013

Feb 1st, 2013 by E. John Sebes

We had some very sad news this week in the TrustTheVote Project — the sudden and unexpected death of a key contributor: Jeffrey Valjean Cook. We all feel that among the ways to mark his passing, it’s important to recall the many contributions he made. But for myself, I have to do so in a [...]

“Why is There a Voting Tech Logjam in Washington

Jan 23rd, 2013 by E. John Sebes

“Why is There a Voting Tech Logjam?” – that’s a good question! A full answer has several aspects, but one of them is the acitivty (or in-activity) at the Federal level, that leads to very limited options in election tech. For a nice pithy explanation of that aspect, check out the current issue of the [...]

Tags: certification, election technology, Open Source, standards, voting system

TrustTheVote’s Next Steps in Online Voter Registration Technology

Jan 21st, 2013 by E. John Sebes

In this New Year, there are so many new opportunties for election tech work that our collective TrustTheVote head is spinning. But this week anyway, we’re focused on next steps in our online voter registration (OVR) work — planning sessions last week, meetings with state election officials this week, and I hope as a result, [...]

Tags: election technology, Open Source, RockTheVote, trustthevote, voter registration

Sequel to A.G. Holder “Fix That” — Can Do!

Dec 13th, 2012 by E. John Sebes

In my last post, I said that we might be onto something, an idea for many of the benefits of universal automatic permanent voter registration, without the need for Federal-plus-50-states overhaul of policy, election law, and election technology that would be required for actual UAP VR. Here is a sketch of what that might be. [...]

Tags: election technology, standards

A.G. Holder Wants to “Fix That” for Voter Registration

Dec 12th, 2012 by E. John Sebes

In a public speech yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called for universal, automatic voter registration, and stated that current technology can accomplish that, despite the fact that the current system is complex and error-prone. As Reuters reported on Holder’s remarks:
By coordinating existing databases, the government could register “every eligible voter in America” and ensure [...]

Tags: election technology, standards

Vote Adding Machine Problems in FL — We Have to Fix That!

Nov 15th, 2012 by E. John Sebes

Despite today’s blog docket being for RockTheVote, I just can’t resist pointing out a recurring type of technology-triggered election dysfunction that is happening again, and is 100% preventable using election technology that we have already developed.
Here’s the scoop: in St. Lucie County, Florida, the LEOs are having trouble coming up with a county wide grand [...]

Tags: count, election technology, Open Source, proprietary, standards, tabulator

NYT: Smartphone Voting? TrustTheVote: No, But How About This … DIY Voter Lookup

Nov 13th, 2012 by E. John Sebes

Much as I admire everybody at the New York Times, I have to disagree with Nick Bilton on his piece Disruptions: Casting a Ballot by Smartphone. I have to say I don’t blame him though, especially given the broad range of coverage of the many many kinds election dysfunction that occured and are still occuring [...]

Tags: ballots, election technology, Open Source, security, voter ID, voter registration

The Root Cause — Long Lines, Late Ballot Counts, and Election Dysfunction in General

Nov 12th, 2012 by E. John Sebes

I’ve spent a fair bit of time over the last few days digesting a broad range of media responses to last week’s election’s operation, much it reaction to President Obama’s “we’ve got to fix that” comment in his acceptance speech. There’s a lot of complaining about the long lines, for example, demands for explanation of [...]

Tags: ballots, digital voting, election incident, election technology, Open Source, paper ballot, security, Technology, transparency, voting machine