The non-partisan political conference took place in Pasadena, California, over June 25 and 26. Many well known politicians, tv hosts, and political thought leaders attended. Some of the most notable were Gov. Gary Johnson, Gov. Sarah Palin, Cenk Uygur, James Carville, John McAfee, Ann Coulter, and Ben Shapiro. See the full line up on politicon.com

Panel: Are U.S. Elections Rigged?

Follow My Vote CEO, Adam Ernest, participated in a panel hosted by the Free and Equal Elections foundation. Participants debated paper ballots vs. online voting, money in politics, gerrymandering, and alternative voting methods.

The room was packed to the gills. When the panel actually ended (due to time constraints), there were still people waiting to ask questions.

During the panel, Ernest educated attendees on the technology Follow My Vote uses to build secure and verifiable online voting software. He said:

“Blockchain technology has the ability to literally root out any potential for corruption in elections.

We are on a panel right now talking about if elections are rigged. I think an even better question would be: with the current processes and systems that are in place to conduct voting, the way we conduct voting today, is there a potential for things to be corrupted? And the answer to that question, in my opinion, would be yes.”

– Adam Ernest, Follow My Vote CEO.

Watch the video of the panel.

Ernest went on to discuss procedural security which is the security controls needed to prevent fraud and inaccuracy. This involves following rules or certain steps to mitigate identified risks. Anytime humans are involved in counting votes, registering people, giving people ballots, procedural security is necessary.

“We no longer have to rely on procedural security to ensure that there is security within our elections. Using blockchain technology, we can literally develop an end-to-end verifiable voting system. If we have the opportunity to leverage technology to make that a reality, the question is, why not?”

The panel not only discussed ending paper ballots, but also ending paper voting guides. Did you know California spends $12-14 million dollars every election cycle on paper voting guides, which are mailed to 17 million registered voters?

Listeners of the panel heard from Cenk Uygur, of The Young Turks. Cenk had valuable input on the ways the mainstream media responds and reports on rigged elections. He also shared interesting information on instances like Rhode Island shutting down 2/3 of their ballot boxes, which could be considered a form of election rigging.

Frank Atwood, of Approval Voting shared information on why approval voting should be used. Approval voting is a method of voting that gives 3rd party candidates a chance and produces a winner that the majority of voters support. Follow My Vote plans to demonstrate approval voting in the Parallel Election of 2016!

Moderators: 

Christina Tobin,  Founder and Chair of the Free and Equal Elections Foundation

Cenk Uygur, Main host and co-founder of The Young Turks

Participants: 

Adam Ernest, CEO of Follow My Vote

Frank Atwood, Approval Voting

Hunter Scarborough, Voter App (matchmaking for politics)

Nate Kaplan of SeePolitical

Kimberley Abels of HeadCount.

Exhibiting

The Follow My Vote Exhibitor booth was well received at Politicon! People were excited to hear that verifiable voting is in the near future.

We answered lots of questions regarding how our system works and how we maintain security.

Out of all the discussion and talking, the most resounding thing people were excited about was our Parallel Election. We are going to demonstrate our voting technology alongside the 2016 U.S Presidential Election.

We also have a Kickstarter to help fund the Parallel Election! You can help elections become more honest and transparent!

See all of our pictures from Politicon on Facebook!

About the author: Will Long is the Marketing Manager of Follow My Vote.

The post Yes, Politicon Was Amazing! appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Under the new system, slated for public use in 2020, voters will indicate their choices on a touchscreen-operated tablet, after which a machine at the voting booth will print and process their paper ballots to be tallied. This is a leap from the ink-based system, which has remained unchanged since its adoption in 2003.

Currently the open source voting system is being developed and they are working on the user experience. The project is being tested on citizens for refinement of the interface. All demographics are getting a chance to test the system including senior citizens, people with disabilities, veterans, and speakers of foreign languages.

The county is also looking at ways to increase their voter turnout. One way they hope to do this is through a “poll pass”, which would allow voters to pre-check their vote on their phone and have a QR code scanned when they walk into the polling place. They hope that this will streamline the voting process and increase civic engagement.

LA County has partnered with Travis County in Texas to help build the open source voting system and carry out the plan.

We commend LA County for moving toward a more open source voting model! However this is a small step in the right direction. We would like to point out that people still have to go to the polls, wait in line, and their system will still waste paper.   Specialized and expensive machines will still have to be purchased for tallying ballots and recording the results. The fact is, election officials will still be the only people to tally the votes, meaning everyone must continue to trust them (The possibility of corruption still exists). We believe that one of the most important parts of an election is the vote recording process. It is not who votes that matters, but who counts the votes. And with Follow My Vote we put the vote counting in the hands of the people.

Check out all the benefits of our online open source voting platform here and let us know what you think in the comments below!

Source: Los Angeles County voting to shift from inkblots to open source

About the author: Will Long is the Marketing Manager of Follow My Vote.

The post LA County Makes Moves Towards Open Source Voting! appeared first on Follow My Vote.

We had many intrigued registrars and election officials come to our booth and pick our brains about our voting solution and how we would bring voting online. Overall we had two kinds of feedback. The first being an encouraging comment about how we are doing the right thing and pushing voting into the future. The second kind of response we received was disbelief accompanied by an explanation of why we will always use paper to vote. It is expected to receive some sort of backlash from an industry that has not seen innovation and change for quite some time. We are disrupting the norm and attempting to restore faith in the democratic process. These responses have validated our efforts and reassured us that we are pursuing the correct path.

We finished the conference with a presentation and demo of our online voting platform, which is a proof of concept that can be customized to the states and counties specifications. CEO and Founder Adam Ernest led an excellent presentation followed by a one of a kind demonstration. The event was filled with interested people and decision makers from all levels of elections, even persons tied to the office of the Secretary of State for CA. After the demo, we held a time for questions and received some excellent feedback that would truly warrant the continuance of our pursuit for online voting.

-Will Long

Marketing Manager

The post California Joint New Law Workshop Recap appeared first on Follow My Vote.

This is where it becomes a little more of a personal piece. I, Brice Moon, have been the one responsible for providing you, our lovely readers, with this information. As of today, December 10th, as Follow My Vote stands on the precipice of something huge, I just wanted to take the time to personally wish them the best of luck, and I hope you will join in with me as well. For too long, voting, the most important of civic duties, has been allowed to remain a cumbersome and antiquated establishment, and I’m sure that many of us want to see this changed. I understand that the path to change is one littered with red tape and other various distractions, but I for one believe that an adventure such as this is about the journey. Along the way, we have been able to learn so much, and as long as we are able to share with others that a solution is at hand, then everything else will come in due time…voting will finally be allowed to enter the 21st century.

Folks, I want to thank you for reading these last few days, and I truly do hope that you are able to say that you have learned a thing or two. Again, wish the gang good luck tomorrow as they convene onto the Joint New Law Conference, and here’s to hoping they put on one heck of a good show!

~Brice Moon~

The post The Road to California – The Finale appeared first on Follow My Vote.