Seattle is the first area in the US where residents can vote via smartphones
Seattle is the first area in the US where residents can vote via
smartphones
King County, Washington residents will be able to vote from
their phones for an upcoming board of supervisors election
King
County, where Seattle is located, announced on Wednesday that it’s implementing
smartphone voting for an upcoming board of supervisors election.
King
County’s 1.2 million residents can use their cellphones to vote in the
election, which begins on January 22nd and continues until 8PM PT on February
11th.
The program
is a collaboration between King County Elections; the county’s conservation
district; mobile-voting nonprofit Tusk Philanthropies; the National
Cybersecurity Center; and Democracy Live, a technology firm that develops
electronic balloting.
“It will be
easier than ever for voters to access their Conservation District ballot and
cast their vote,” said Julie Wise, King County director of elections, in a
statement. “Here at King County Elections, we are always looking for ways to
improve access and engage our voters and this election could be a key step in
moving toward electronic access and return for voters across the region.”
In an
interview with NPR, Bradley Tusk,
CEO and Founder of Tusk Philanthropies, emphasized the positive impact the
technology could have on voter turnout. Per NPR, King County’s board of
supervisors election has seen less than 1 percent of eligible voters turn out
in past years.
But the
expansion of smartphone voting has met strong resistance, especially in the
wake of the 2016 presidential election, during which Russian hackers
infiltrated state voter registration systems, accessed the private emails of Clinton
campaign staff, and engaged in numerous other cybercrimes. While there’s no
evidence that Russia altered any votes in 2016, cybersecurity experts have
cited the incidents as evidence that foreign powers might target US elections
down the road.
Of course,
internet voting carries many of the same risks as other internet activity:
links can be spoofed, devices can be compromised by malware, users can be
impersonated, and systems can be DDoS’d.
In 2018, the
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine warned against all forms of
online voting, recommending that US elections stick to paper ballots
for the foreseeable future. The US Senate Intelligence Committee warned against the practice as
well in its heavily redacted report on Russian election interference, which was
released last July.
The
Democratic National Committee has also nixed proposals
that would allow Iowa and Nevada to conduct virtual caucuses, citing security
concerns.
Virtual
voting isn’t a new idea. In 2010, the DC Board of Elections and
Ethics created an internet-based election portal and invited
security experts to probe it for vulnerabilities. The board scrapped the portal
after a University of Michigan student breached it.
However,
other counties have successfully implemented forms of smartphone voting. West
Virginia allowed overseas voters to submit absentee ballots via a blockchain-based voting app called
Voatz in the 2018 midterm election. Around 150 people voted that way, however,
a small fraction of King County’s eligible electorate. Counties in Utah,
Oregon, and Colorado have also tested mobile voting for small numbers of
overseas voters.
Another key
difference: West Virginia’s online ballots went through an app dedicated to
secure voting, which verified each voter’s identity via facial or fingerprint
recognition.
King County
voters can submit through a mobile web portal, verifying their identities with
their name, birthdate, and a signature. Democracy Live CEO Bryan Finney told
NPR that officials in Washington will be able to verify signatures since the
state votes entirely by mail. The elections office plans to count paper copies
of all electronic ballots as well.
The board of
supervisors election is one of many “pilots” that Tusk plans to implement over
the next five years in counties around the US. There’s no indication yet of
whether King County plans to expand the system to statewide or national
elections.
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