Mobile Voting: The Why

Follow My Vote’s ambition is to build a secure mobile voting platform that will allow for greater election transparency and increase accessibility to the polls on Election Day.

Since the dawn of democracy, elections throughout the world have been plagued with accusations of illegitimacy. As democratic societies across the globe are beginning to adopt technology to improve the efficiency of the election process, many people are discovering that certain types of technology can be extremely vulnerable, which may have the potential to unfairly influence the outcome of elections.

Only those that are on the forefront of technological advancement realize today what the majority of people will become aware of tomorrow, which is that there was a technological solution that was recently introduced to mankind that has the ability to solve both of these critical issues: the lack of transparency in our elections and the lack of security of our election systems.

Using this advanced technology we will be able to gain transparency into our elections, without compromising voter privacy, and have a way to mathematically prove that the elections results are accurate.  Also, at the voter’s request, there would even be a way to allow a voter to cast their vote online in an election and follow their vote into the ballot box to ensure that their vote was safely and securely stored without being changed or altered in any way.

Typically, when cutting edge technology is introduced to the masses, there is an increased financial burden placed on early adopters whom are willing to pay the higher cost in order to take advantage of the additional benefits the new technology provides. Contrary to this trend, this particular technology could actually drastically reduce the costs of our elections and free up taxpayer money to be spent on other extremely important aspects of our society, such as improving the quality of our education systems or rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

Increasing voter turnout would also be a likely byproduct of bringing elections securely online. The reality is that, in the past, many companies have tried to host elections online but have failed only due to the technological approach they decided to take and not because it can’t be done. If we can overcome the misconception that mobile voting cannot be done safely and securely, we could encourage a whole new wave of voters to conveniently cast their vote on a mobile device from anywhere in the world.

Why? Why introduce a new voting system that could cut costs, increase voter turnout, make voting more convenient and accessible, ensure elections are honest, and reassure voters that their voice was heard by their government?

Because we can. Because we now have the technology to make all this possible. All we need from you is your support to make this a reality.

Will you join us?  

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” – Joseph Stalin

Mobile Voting: The What

With the ability to audit the ballot box and watch elections progress in real time, Follow My Vote’s secure end-to-end verifiable mobile voting platform would offer unparalleled electoral transparency.

Let’s face it. No one except for election officials really know what happens to your vote once you cast it, so it’s not surprising that more and more research is showing that many citizens don’t vote because they don’t believe their votes count. Understandably, these frustrated voters are losing confidence in the democratic process.

With Follow My Vote’s secure mobile voting platform, using a webcam and a government-issued ID, voters could remotely and securely log in and vote for their desired candidates. After they’ve selected their candidates, they can use their unique Voter ID to quite literally open the ballot box, locate their vote, and check that it is both present and correct. Additionally, voters can then watch the election progress in real time as votes are cast. What’s more, Follow My Vote’s platform will allow for an indecisive voter to return to the system and switch his or her votes at any time before the election deadline closes.  

The ability to change your vote, coupled with the ability to observe the election in real time, has major implications for the current two-party system. Now, voters who would like to vote for a third party candidate are likely not to for fear of wasting their vote on a candidate who is not likely to win. In some instances, voting for a third party draws votes from one of the two dominant parties that has similar views and increases the chances the opposition party will win. With the ability to change their vote, voters can counteract this vote-splitting effect and shake up the current two-party system.  

Follow My Vote’s secure mobile voting platform will be extremely convenient, which will likely improve voter turnout among younger generations and provide troops abroad, the elderly, and the disabled a viable alternative to current voting methods. The reality is a democracy can’t function properly if almost half of citizens aren’t voting. In this way, Follow My Vote is striving to increase voter turnout.  

Another advantage Follow My Vote’s secure mobile voting platform will offer is cost-effectiveness. In the United States, millions of dollars of taxpayer money are spent on line items such as printing ballots and mailing voter information alone. These are unnecessary costs that will be reduced over time by moving to mobile voting, an effort Follow My Vote plans to facilitate.  

Follow My Vote’s mobile voting software comes with the security of blockchain technology and is open-source so that anyone can audit the software’s code.  Keep reading to learn more about blockchain technology and why we believe that decentralization is the key to secure end-to-end verifiable mobile voting.  

Our Mission

Follow My Vote’s mission is to promote truth and freedom by empowering individuals to communicate effectively and implement non-coercive solutions to societal problems.

As a first step towards fulfilling our mission, Follow My Vote is taking on the challenge of improving the integrity standards of voting systems used in elections worldwide.

In order to ensure that election results are truly accurate, we are developing an online open source voting platform that provides transparency into election results by allowing voters to independently audit the ballot box. Using cutting edge technologies, such as blockchain technology and elliptic curve cryptography, we can actually accomplish this, all while protecting each voter’s right to privacy.

After all, in an election, it’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes!