“You can monitor and election in real time to literally track who is the likely winner of the election,” Ernest said. “When the polls close you will immediately know who won. There’s no waiting up until two in the morning or sometimes days after to get an official results tally. The system itself tabulates votes on the fly and can give you an accurate result when the polls close.” Ernest said he’d like to involve a cyber security club at Virginia Tech to test the systems. “Have them try to hack the system and we make a big production out of it and bring a spotlight to the region and talk about Hokies really inventing the future.”

Ernest recently partnered with The Free and Equal Elections Foundation, which has given the company a platform to educate the country and world about the problems he says currently plague election systems and how Follow My Vote aims to solve them.

Follow My Vote is currently sponsoring the United We Stand Festival in Boulder, Colorado set to take place October 25 where he will be one of several panelists discussing electoral reform.

Read more here.

About the Author: David Brock is a marketing intern at Follow My Vote.

The post Follow My Vote invites local Cyber Security Club to hack their software appeared first on Follow My Vote.

What is Approval Voting?

Approval Voting is a single-winner voting method in where a voter can approve of any number of candidates. The candidate that gets the most approval votes wins office. This would help eliminate some of the disadvantages third party candidates have. They no longer would be splitting the vote and voters will be more likely to throw their support behind someone they don’t think it will be wasted on. Approval voting can be considered a form of score voting, with two values, 0 and 1—or a form of majority judgment, with grades restricted to good and poor. Approval voting has been adopted by the Mathematical Association of America (1986), the American Mathematical Society, the Institute of Management Sciences (1987), the American Statistical Association (1987), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1987)

Other Options?

Ranked Voting is in which the candidates are ranked in the order of their fitness for the job. The lowest ranked person gets dropped and then all of their votes go to their second choice and so on and so forth. This ensures that the most popular candidate wins the election whereas in the orginial instance of approval voting, it might be the least suitable approved candidate.

Why this matters?

Our current voting system is flawed as I pointed out in the first paragraph. The only way we can change that is by electing people who support changing the voting system and its technology. You can help by joining our Beta signup list and helping us bug-test our code before we try to market it. Through your help, we can make our voting technology more secure and keep candidates who are the least popular out of office.

About the Author: David Brock is a marketing intern at Follow My Vote.

The post Approval Voting appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Stick with me, I know I had my doubts about this too. The ability for early joiners to make a lot of money sounds like a ponzi scheme, but Steemit has created some measures to keep the market from being volatile and increase it’s long-term viability.  This beautiful post on Steemit describes the long-term business model, and how Steemit is not going away. I’ve linked it but also I’ll provide an excerpt. Just a little background, there are three types of Steem Currency Units: Steem Power Units, Steem, and Steem Dollars.

“Owning Steem Power Units is essentially like making a long term investment in the currency because you can’t sell Steem Power Units for 2 years. But there are a lot of good reasons to have Steem Power.

By keeping your currency as Steem Power Units, you will be able to make considerably more money in the long run because you essentially have ownership in the network. As the network grows, so will your piece of the pie.

And you’ll be heavily rewarded along the way. The way things are set up now, 90% of the new Steem Currency that is generated every single day is distributed to the people who already hold Steem Power Units in the form of additional Steem Units. (The other 10% goes to content creators and curators).

Half of the pay you receive for your content will be in Steem Power Units.

Also, the more Steem Power Units you have, the more your curation vote will count. You will have more influence on the site and you will also get paid more for upvoting other people’s work. (When you upvote someone’s work, they will get paid more as well.)

Steem Power Units also play one final and very important role. They prevent massive price swings and volatility on the open markets. Because everyone is locked in for 2 years, we can’t all sell our currency all at once if the market starts to dip, which would crash the price were it to happen.”

The post Steemit – The future of Social Media appeared first on Follow My Vote.

As a company that is devoted to providing a secure voting system, we feel obligated to comment on the hack as it uses our technology. It is important to note that the bitcoin blockchain has never been hacked, that the hack was conducted on a centralized exchange. This exchange is also by no means the largest, with the breach accounting for just 0.75% of the bitcoin in circulation. Our CTO, Nathan Hourt, commented on the hack by saying, “Indeed, the comments on how this is so bad and scary and this is what’s dangerous about crypto are quite strange… Why is this any more dangerous than any other bookkeeping? This is actually far less dangerous, since now there are cryptographically regulated procedures necessary to carry out changes on the database. A hacker must comply with those procedures, whereas before he was able to do anything he wanted once he hacked into the relevant computer(s).”

Not everyone is convinced that this hack is a legitimate hack either. As the story continues to unfold we will update this post with more information.

The post Why the Bitfinex hack isn’t the downfall of blockchain appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Scotland, whose people primarily voted to stay in the EU, has been flirting with the idea of breaking up with the UK for years now. A referendum two years ago found a narrow victory for Scotland to stay in the UK. However, with news that the UK is breaking with the EU, this will be just another reason for Scotland to want to break with the UK and stay in the EU.

This decision will influence politics and economics for years to come, and our team at Follow My Vote is dedicated in giving you the lastest news!

About the author: David Brock is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote.

The post BREXIT: THE AFTERMATH appeared first on Follow My Vote.

A referendum is essentially a yes or no vote to a particular question. (Also a perfect time to use verifiable blockchain voting software)

What does Brexit mean? It is a combination of Britain and exit. 

Here are the pros and cons of the Brexit:

Pros:

If Britain Exits the UK, there will immediately be a savings of  £13 billion dollars which can be reinvested into their economy. They would then be free to establish tariffs and other trade agreements.

The primary reasons people support a brexit is because of sovereignty; few disagree that EU membership involves giving up some control over their affairs. Labour MP Kate Hoey says the EU is “an attempt to replace the democratic power of the people with a permanent administration in the interests of big business.” Those unsatisfied with immigrants moving into the country are more likely to support a brexit, as they would be then free to restrict immigration severely. This in terms would create more jobs for the British people.

Cons:

U.K. Treasury ran an analysis on the situation and showed that the nation would be  “permanently poorer” if they left the E.U. “Productivity and GDP per person would be lower in all these alternative scenarios, as the costs would substantially outweigh any potential benefit of leaving the EU,” the report said. With weaker earnings per person, the U.K. would experience less tax revenue and more social programs would have to be cut. Those losses would grossly outweigh the purported economic benefits that leaving the EU would have. The Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, and reputed economists have all joined the Treasury in its message that leaving the EU would be a disaster.

However, the effect is not just local. Billions of dollars from international organizations flow through Britain to take advantage of free trade policies enacted throughout the E.U. An exit by Britain can cause these organizations to lose some of their profit, and be less incentivized to invest in the region. In 2014, American direct investment into the EU totaled about 1.81 trillion euros, and about 1.99 trillion euros flowed in the opposite direction, according to the European Commission.

About the author: David Brock is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote.

The post Brexit: The Rundown appeared first on Follow My Vote.

“The experts in the Wired article [that said online voting had many security flaws], and most of the others, might have computer security backgrounds, but they have never done even one election.

[The 2000 effort in Arizona] was a global event; everybody knew about this. We had something like 80 million people come to the website on the day of election. And one firm even hired hackers to break the site. It’s true the first few hours, the servers were very slow. With the help of Cisco, we learned how to defend [against] all those attacks, and response time normalized. And we sustained all the challenges and everything else.

The reality is it is doable, especially with new technology.”

Online voting could allow practically everyone to vote although it may take time to adopt the technology. In the article, Joe Mohen outlines the benefits of having everyone voting and why they haven’t adopted it.

“If you had Internet voting, almost everybody would vote. The way it is now, incumbents get elected at an 80 percent, 90 percent rate; if your congressman’s been there awhile, your congressman’s going to be there awhile. If you allow Internet voting, incumbents would get voted out at a 50/50 rate. So the science of staying in as an incumbent is to manage the voting systems so that the predictable few vote in the primary.”

About Follow My Vote

At Follow My Vote, we are dedicated to making a secure online voting platform that will be able to allow everyone that can vote to vote. With a 19% congressional approval rating, voting out incumbents can be a huge step in order to restoring trust and satisfaction in our government.

About the author: David Brock is a Marketing Intern of Follow My Vote.

The post Joe Mohen, CEO of election.com, “Internet voting creates higher voter turnout” appeared first on Follow My Vote.

RBTC: What are some of the regional resources that have contributed to your success?
Adam: NuSpark, a startup space located in Blacksburg dedicated to helping aspiring entrepreneurs turn ideas into businesses, was truly instrumental to our success at Follow My Vote. They gave us dedicated office space and a place to call home when we needed it most.

RBTC: What makes the Roanoke-Blacksburg region such a good fit for your company?
Adam: Upon graduating from Virginia Tech, it had always been my dream to return to Blacksburg and start a business, allowing me to recruit top talent from my alma mater and give back to the surrounding community in any way that I can.

RBTC: If you could give one piece of advice to a fellow entrepreneur, what would it be?
Adam: Be a visionary leader. Be passionate about what you do and surround yourself with people that share your passion and belief in your vision for the future of your business.

RBTC: What is one lesson you have learned over time that has made an impact on your business’ day-to-day operations?
Adam: A good manager should focus on what’s really important. I have found it best to focus less on what time your employees get to work in the morning and more on whether or not they get the job done before they leave the office for the night.

RBTC: How would you like to see the Roanoke-Blacksburg region develop over the next 5 years?
Adam: I think we all should strive to support local businesses, as opposed to large corporations, even if it is not always most cost effective to do so. What I would really like to see is for us to become much more of a self-sustaining community, especially when it comes to energy and food production.

We would like to thank the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council for setting up the interview!

About Follow My Vote: A company focused on providing honest elections, Follow My Vote develops end-2-end verifiable voting through the use of blockchain technology.

About the author: David Brock is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote.

The post Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council Interviews Adam Ernest, CEO of Follow My Vote appeared first on Follow My Vote.

On the democratic side of things, it’s getting a bit interesting. An article by Phillip Bump of the Washington Post  published earlier this month shows that Bernie Sanders would need over 90.8% of the vote in the upcoming primaries for him to win the Democratic nomination without the help of Clinton’s super-delegates. Even with her super-delegates split proportionally, Bernie Sanders would need 67.6% of the vote in the future primaries to win the nomination. Luckily,  the Washington primary provided him with a landslide of a win, earning him 74 of the 101 available delegates. He was able to garner over 72.7% of the vote in the state. Even though Bernie is unlikely to win the nomination simply due to the Democrat’s process of proportional delegation, he still has a couple of tricks up his sleeve.

Today, the Washington Post was able to get a glimpse of the Inspector General’s report on the legality of Hillary Clinton’s email servers.

The State Department’s independent watchdog has issued a highly critical analysis of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while running the department, concluding that she failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private email server and that department staff would not have given its blessing because of the “security risks in doing so.”

Rosalind S. Helderman – Washington Post

Keeping this in mind, when the FBI finishes their investigation they might choose to indict her. This may be Bernie’s best chance for winning the nomination but only time can tell.

Backtracking to the primaries before the Washington primary

Oregon

Donald Trump won with 66% of the vote (18 Delegates)

Bernie Sanders won with 56% of the vote (34 Delegates)

Kentucky

Donald Trump won with 35.9% of the vote (17 Delegates)

Hillary Clinton Won with 46.8% of the vote compared to Bernie Sanders 46.3% of the vote (each got 27 Delegates)

Breaking News: Bernie Sanders has requested a Kentucky Primary recanvass. (This is not the same as a recall)  In his filing this Tuesday, Sanders requested a full check and recanvass of every voting machine. This includes absentee ballots and machines from all precincts in the counties. A Sanders aide was quoted in the Huffington Post saying:

“I think the point is just transparency, it’s not just about Kentucky,” Sanders aide Larry Cohen said on CNN. “It’s about trying to create a context, now and at the (Democratic) convention, that these primaries and caucuses need transparency, they need to be authentic, they need to build confidence among voters, particularly younger voters, that this is not rigged.”

We completely support the pursuit of transparency, however Sanders and his campaign will likely be sorely disappointed. Current voting machines are extremely faulty and can be easily hacked. They are not built to be transparent like a blockchain voting system. 

West Virginia

Donald Trump won with 77% of the vote (30 delegates)

Bernie Sanders won with 51% of the vote (18 delegates)

Nebraska

Donald Trump won with 61% of the vote  (36 delegates)

Bernie Sanders won with 57.1% of the vote (15 delegates)

Make sure you are signed up to vote in our parallel election! We are demonstrating the security and transparency of our blockchain voting software. You don’t want to miss out!

About the author: David Brock is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote.

The post May Primary Synopsis And An Extensive Analysis Of The Washington Primary Results appeared first on Follow My Vote.