Follow My Vote Code Contributors

Verifiable means that voters using our software will have the ability follow their vote into the ballot box to ensure that their vote was stored successfully and counted correctly. Furthermore, through an innovative process, we’ve developed a way to allow our users to view all of the ballots within our transparent ballot box, without revealing anyone’s identity and/or being able to tell how a specific person voted.

Since the dawn of time, polls and elections throughout the world have been plagued with accusations of illegitimacy. Our system can free the world from voter fraud by keeping polls and elections verifiably honest.

The unfortunate reality is that voting machines used in elections today are extremely vulnerable. Even when voting machines aren’t involved, the current voting process almost always involves a human element. Although we believe that humans are naturally good people, all humans are vulnerable to being corrupted. The truth is that there is evidence of dishonest elections. Election research quantitative analysts have discovered anomalies in elections even in the United states. The analyses of cumulative vote shares indicate that we do experience voter fraud and dishonest elections.

All of this is to say that, regardless of whether its a man or a machine that is distributing and collecting ballots, counting votes, or reporting vote totals, the current voting process as a whole is vulnerable to corruption, which means it cannot be trusted, and is therefore fundamentally flawed.

When adopted, our verifiable voting system will solve this problem.

In the United States, one could say that there is a two party political system. A political system dominated by just two political parties can lead to a situation where there is a constant state of back and forth that leads to political gridlock, preventing progress while leaving the people hanging in the balance.

Typically, when an election is held in the United States, either a candidate from the Republican Party or the Democratic Party has the most support, gets the most votes, and therefore wins the election.

But, the question one should ask is, “Does the Republican Party candidate or the Democratic Party candidate typically have the most support?”

Many people would argue that if a person votes for a candidate other than one of the two major parties in the United States, such as the Independent Party, the Green Party, or the Libertarian Party, they are simply wasting their vote because the third party candidate stands virtually no chance of winning the election.

With this in mind, and being that we are only allowed to vote once and are constrained to vote for at most one candidate when we vote, it may be that although most people support the third party candidate, they end up voting for the Republican or democratic candidate instead out of fear of wasting their vote. All this is to say, at the end of the day, it’s tough to say based on the way we are allowed to vote today, which is called the first-past-the-post voting model.

But, what if we were able to vote 30, 60, or even 90 days early and be allowed to change our vote in the days leading up to the polls closing on election day?

That ability, combined with the ability to see election results in real-time, may allow a third party candidate to gain traction in the days leading up to the election. Those that choose to support the third party candidate can do so without fear of wasting their vote because, if it turns out that the third party candidate doesn’t get enough votes to win the election, the voter can always change their vote to one of the candidates from the two major parties before the polls close. Under this current stigma, allowing voting to take place in this way is really the only way to truly tell which candidate has the most support and therefore be elected.

In 2016, Follow My Vote will be hosting a mock election in parallel to the 2016 United States Presidential Election. During this election, in addition to demonstrating our secure end-to-end verifiable online voting software, we will be introducing voters to new ways of voting, such as early voting, continuous polling, and real-time results.

Ultimately, if these voting options make their way into the mainstream voting process in the United States, it could challenge the two party system and mitigate the risk of political gridlock.

When people vote in elections, they often choose to subscribe to a political party and make a point to vote the party line, meaning that they vote for candidates that belong to their political party respectively. Other people may simply not know much about any of the candidates running for office, and therefore they vote for the candidates from the political party they identify with mostly. Either way, when this occurs, many voters may unknowingly vote against their own self-interest because they don’t take their time to get to know the candidates and the policies that each candidate stands for.

But, what if candidates were allowed to include profile information about themselves and where they stood on the issues directly on the ballot?

People would no longer risk voting against their own self-interest. They could review the profile information of each candidate that is running for office and vote for the candidate they support based on where they stand on the issues.

In 2016, Follow My Vote will be hosting a mock election in parallel to the 2016 United States Presidential Election. During this election, in addition to demonstrating our secure end-to-end verifiable online voting software, we will be introducing voting in a whole new light. We will include features such as candidate profiles and candidate matching to help inform voters and make sure they choose a candidate that shares their interest.

Ultimately, if these voting options make their way into the mainstream voting process in the United States, it would allow us to focus on the issues versus the political parties, which could ultimately make our government more representative of the people.

By introducing a secure verifiable online voting solution as an option complimentary to all other voting options, people will have an opportunity to vote in an election on their own device from anywhere in the world.

Although some people may prefer to wait in line at a centralized polling location in order to cast their vote, others will prefer to save time and vote conveniently online. Those brave souls that choose to vote online will be just like the brave souls that were the first people to shop online. As Follow My Vote’s verifiable online technology proves to be secure and user-friendly, it’s highly likely that voting online will become the preferred way to vote, just as shopping online has become the preferred way to shop throughout the world today.

Improving accessibility in this way will not only make voting more convenient, but it will undoubtedly increase voter turnout, as those who didn’t vote absentee and were unable to make it to their designated centralized polling location on election day will be able to successfully cast their vote.

In 2016, Follow My Vote will be hosting a mock election in parallel to the 2016 United States Presidential Election. During this election, we will be introducing voters to the elements of our verifiable online voting software that make it a secure option and therefore a viable voting option.

Ultimately, if the online voting option made it’s way into the mainstream voting process in the United States, and as more people participate in elections by taking advantage of this option, the more representative of the people the outcomes of our elections become.