Democratic Party

There were 86 new delegates up for grabs on Tuesday night. Sanders took 47 of them and won 56 percent of the vote. This pushes his total delegate count to 1097. Breaking that number down, however, reveals that 1066 are pledged delegates (cannot change their vote), and only 31 are superdelegates. And that takes us to Clinton, who took home 36 new delegates, pushing her total to 1778. However, when breaking down her delegate count, only 1295 are pledged, while 483 are superdelegates. Taking away the superdelegate count, which can change their allegiance at any time, the race is becoming increasingly closer than many ever imagined. The candidates will head to Wyoming and then back east to New York in the coming weeks.

Republican Party

The biggest story of the night came out of the Republican primary. Once thought to be a long shot, a contested convention is no longer just an idea. If no candidate reaches the 1,237 delegate mark, that is exactly what will happen at the Republican convention in July. Cruz took Wisconsin with 48 percent of the vote, and gained 36 new delegates. Cruz’s delegate total is now at 510.  Trump did take home 6 new delegates, pushing his total to 743. Kasich still sits at 145 delegates, and faces a nearly impossible mathematical chance of picking up enough delegates. The candidates head east to New York, Trump’s home state, in the coming weeks.

“Trump needs to win 55 percent of the delegates that remain to be awarded. Cruz needs to win more than 80 percent of the remaining delegates up for grabs to secure the nomination – a difficult task even with momentum.”

– Steve Holland, Reuters

At Follow My Vote, we envision an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post Wisconsin Primary: Brokered Convention on the Horizon? appeared first on Follow My Vote.

First, Utah is a closed caucus. This essentially means that you must be a registered party member to participate. The company contracted to establish the blockchain voting system for Utah’s GOP was Smartmatic. Strangely, we could not find a single mention or explanation of blockchain technology on Smartmatic’s website.

“Smartmatic will use a private blockchain along with end-to-end encryption, enabling registered Republicans in Utah to cast their vote online.”

– Samburaj Das, CCN.LA

With the Utah GOP using a closed caucus, does this mean that only Republican voters can audit their own vote? A WIRED article mentions that Smartmatic did create a bulletin board for each voter to verify that their vote was cast correctly…

It is a step in the right direction, but what about being able to audit the entire election?  If you wanted to independently audit the election results, Republican or not, would you have been able to do so yesterday, or even today for that matter? These are fundamental questions that need to be answered.

Adding insult to injury, it appears that online voters in Utah experienced multiple problems yesterday. Utah voters actually reached out to Follow My Vote yesterday for help with casting their vote. However, since we are not providing them with voting services, we were unable to help. Multiple outlets are reporting that many voters experienced error messages when casting their ballot, while some could not even verify their ID.

“As of Tuesday night, party officials said about 10,000 of the 40,000 Utahns who applied to vote online were rejected because their IDs couldn’t be verified.”

– Amber Phillips, Washington Post 

To ensure true transparency yesterday, Follow My Vote would have made sure that all of the code was open source.  To make things completely transparent, we would also have allowed anyone to audit the entire blockchain-based ballot box, while keeping each vote anonymous. By allowing complete transparency and end-to-end verifiability, there would be little left to question about election results.

Democratic Party

The Democratic Party had 128 delegates up for grabs in Arizona, Idaho and Utah yesterday. Arizona was a primary, while Utah and Idaho were caucuses. Bernie Sanders actually had the better night, with convincing victories over Hilary Clinton in Idaho and Utah. He carried around 80 percent of the vote in both states and collected 67 new delegates. Sanders’ total increased to 937, which still leaves him with quite a bit of work to do if he is to catch up to Clinton. However, more of these convincing victories are what he will need going forward.

Clinton won the Arizona primary and collected 51 new delegates. This puts her total at 1,681 and her lead seems as steady as it was before Tuesday’s results.

Next up: Democrats have 3 caucuses in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii on March 26th.

Republican Party

Republicans had the Arizona Primary and Utah Caucus last night. 98 new delegates were up for grabs. Donald Trump was heavily favored to win Arizona, and met those expectations taking 47 percent of the vote. Trump’s delegate total increased by 58, putting him at 739. Ted Cruz won Utah with 69 percent of the vote and took 40 new delegates. Cruz’s total sits at 465. John Kasich collected no new delegates. His delegate total sits at 143. Much like Clinton, this continues to be Trump’s race to lose.

Next up: Republicans have the Wisconsin primary on April 5th.

At Follow My Vote, we are developing an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post Blockchain Voting in Utah? Pics or it Didn’t Happen appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Democratic Party

Clinton was heavily favored in southern states like North Carolina and Florida going into Tuesday, and by all means met and exceeded those expectations. Clinton took 64 percent of the vote in Florida and 55 percent in North Carolina. In a more tightly contested race, she also took Illinois with 50 percent of the vote. Perhaps the most surprising part of Tuesday’s Democratic primaries was how easily Clinton took Ohio. Many expected Clinton to have serious contention from Sanders in this key state, but she took one of her biggest wins of the night with 57 percent of the vote. Since the Democratic primary process does not award delegates in a winner-take-all format, Clinton still only came away with 364 delegates, as Missouri is still too close to call, pushing her total to 1,599.

Sanders had a very disappointing night as he did not win a single state. Again, Missouri has not been officially called yet. However, Sanders is truly running out of time if he wants to catch up with Clinton. Sanders still took home 264 delegates, but his total is only at 844. Essentially, Sanders will have to win often and decisively from here on out.

“Sanders will go on from this Tuesday of voting. He will continue to raise money. There will be states to come that Sanders will probably win. His movement will continue on. But, running a serious national campaign designed to influence the eventual nominee is a very different thing from running a serious national campaign to be the nominee.”

– Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

Republican Party

Trump continued his dominance on Tuesday night collecting Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina. His one disappointment? Ohio. Trump would all but have locked up the Republican nomination if he had taken Ohio last night. Like the Democratic primary, Missouri is still too close to call for Trump as he leads by a razor thin margin in Missouri. Nonetheless, he still sits in a strong position to become the party’s nominee after picking up 177 delegates, with a total of 646.

Then there were three. The biggest surprise of the night was Rubio’s poor showing in the field, and specifically in his home state of Florida. Rubio had promised that he would take his home state, but was beaten badly by Trump by a 46-27 percent margin. In his concession speech, Rubio suspended his campaign. Other than being locked in a tight battle for Missouri, Cruz did nothing to make up ground on Trump only collecting 27 new delegates. Kasich foiled Trump in his home state of Ohio, but faces a nearly impossible gap in delegates at this point in the race.

“The Republican Party, meanwhile, veered closer to a contested convention after Kasich held his own state and deprived Trump of its 66 delegates. That makes it more difficult for the billionaire to reach the 1,237 delegates he needs to capture the GOP prize.”

– Stephen Collinson, CNN Politics

Finally, there has been growing chatter about a contested convention, as the Republican establishment are no big fans of Trump. Essentially, if no candidate reaches the threshold of 1,237 delegates, a contested convention would occur in July. This means that despite Trump holding a delegate lead, the party could nominate a new candidate to represent the party in the 2016 race. There is much to happen still in the coming months, but right now this race is Trump’s to lose.

At Follow My Vote, we envision an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post Clinton and Trump Continue to Pull Away in 2016 Race for the White House appeared first on Follow My Vote.

With the loss, the Sanders campaign will now have an uphill battle with many states left to go. He has incredibly been held afloat by grassroots funding and his enormous popularity with younger voters.

“Even if he doesn’t prevail, Sanders has been the stone against which Clinton has honed and sharpened her own candidacy. Even just having to debate him, having to work harder to explain her positions and connect with voters, has made Hillary Clinton a better candidate.”

– Sally Kohn, CNN Politics

Clinton’s landslide victory in South Carolina bodes well for her prospects in the remaining Southern states. Both candidates head into Super Tuesday with 21% of delegates on the line. It isn’t all but certain that Tuesday will tell us which Democratic candidate will be the nominee. However, it will take a strong showing from Sanders to not make the gap in delegates seem insurmountable.

At Follow My Vote, we envision an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post South Carolina Democratic Primary: Clinton’s Landslide Victory Over Sanders appeared first on Follow My Vote.

The GOP primary debates in August and September were ratings blockbusters, in large part because the Republican Party has degenerated into a drunken circus. But notwithstanding the fact that three of the candidates on stage Tuesday night—former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley; former Senator Jim Webb; former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee—have negligible support among Democratic voters, and thus a big incentive to make an impression, the first Democratic debate is expected to be a more sober, and lower-rated event.

An obvious, but undermentioned reality of U.S. politics at the moment  is that making a splash in the Democratic party doesn’t require grasping for reactionary, unpopular policy positions, while in the Republican party, it does.

But just because the Democratic candidates don’t deny climate change, or promise to build walls along our borders and deport all of our unauthorized immigrants, doesn’t make them immune to trafficking in fantasy. And that makes it incumbent upon us in the media to clearly distinguish between the candidates’ ideological preferences, and the promises they’ll reliably be able to keep.

The gloomy truth about the 2016 campaign is that while Democratic candidates, like Republican candidates, must campaign on aspirations, all of them are aware that if the country elects a Democrat in 2016, he or she will probably inherit a Republican House, and perhaps a Republican Senate as well, significantly limiting the potential scope of liberal reform.

Democratic candidates can draw strong ideological distinctions between one another, but their presidencies will be circumscribed by less lofty constraints like political strategy and technocratic imagination.

For instance: Bernie Sanders wants college to be free for everyone; Hillary Clinton wants to means test tuition subsidies. This tells you something important about the different roles the two candidates think the federal government should play in our higher education system, but almost nothing about how higher education policy would change in a Sanders or Clinton presidency.

Tuesday night’s debate is an opportunity to sort abstract preferences from the likely governing constraints a Democratic president will face in 2017, and to assess the candidates’ strategic thinking about how to work through or around those constraints.

We already know how the leading candidates propose to grapple with polarization and gridlock. Clinton has consistently argued that making progress in our system of government today requires an appetite and instinct for partisan combat—a theory bolstered by the massive resistance with which Republicans responded to President Barack Obama’s promise of accommodation and bipartisanship.

Read more at: newrepublic.com.

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The Democratic National Committee has announced a schedule of six presidential primary debates, beginning on October 13. 2015 in Nevada.

The party made the announcement on the same day that the Republican candidates are set to debate for the first time in Cleveland, Ohio.

Just four of the Democratic debates will be held before the key early nominating contests begin early next year.

After the October debate in Nevada, which will be hosted by CNN, the next Democratic debates are: November 14 in Des Moines, IA (hosted by CBS, KCCI and the Des Moines Register); December 19 in Manchester, NH (hosted by ABC and WMUR); and January 17 in Charleston, SC (hosted by NBC News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute).

Debates are also scheduled to be held in February or March in both Miami and Wisconsin, with dates to be announced.

Two of Clinton’s rivals have said they are upset about the way the party has scheduled the debates.

“By inserting themselves into the debate process, the DNC has ironically made it less democratic. The schedule they have proposed does not give voters—nationally, and especially in early states—ample opportunity to hear from the Democratic candidates for President,” former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said in a statement.

Read more at: nbcnews.com.

The post 2016 Democratic Party Debates appeared first on Follow My Vote.

For a brief period in November 2000, it looked as if the future of the United States was going to be decided by chads—hanging door chads, swinging door chads, perforated chads, and yes, even the occasional dimpled chad.

When the electoral contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore came down to only a few hundred votes in the state of Florida, all anyone could talk about were the tiny perforated circles on election ballots voters pushed to indicate their selections.

The entire thing was, unquestionably, an epic mess—the voting system of the most technologically advanced country on the planet melting down for all the world to see. It was a wake-up call that the U.S. needed to take drastic measures to transform the way people voted in the 21st century.

This newfound focus on improving the country’s elections didn’t just extend to looking for more reliable balloting machines. With an increasing number of people using the Internet on a daily basis, the 2000 election sparked an interest in developing technologies that would let people vote online with their own personal computers in the comfort of their own homes.

If implemented correctly, the proliferation of online voting could solve one of the biggest problems in American democracy: low voter turnout. The 2014 midterms boasted the lowest voter turnout in 72 years. In the three most populous states in the country, less than one-third of voters submitted ballots. For off-year and primary elections, the percentage of Americans who go to the polls is even lower. During Texas’s primary election in March of last year, only one out of every 10 registered voters bothered to show up.

Low turnout leads to political polarization because the most ideologically extreme voters on either side are the most likely to participate. When politicians know they’re mainly accountable to rigid partisans, the country gets politicians more interested in shutting down the government to win political points than making compromises in good faith. Making it easier to vote by moving the action from a polling station to your pocket could only increase turnout, especially in the primaries.

Yet 15 years after the 2000 debacle, online voting in the United States has barely advanced.

The state of Alaska’s Department of Elections set up an online voting system, but no one else has replicated it. A program backed by the Department of Defense to enable online voting for Americans living overseas was scrapped in 2004, eight months before it was scheduled for deployment, due to security concerns.

Making online voting work is infinitely harder than it initially seems. However, in the past few years, there’s been a renewed effort to solve the conundrum of online voting using a most unexpected tool: Bitcoin.

Source: kernelmag.dailydot.com

The post The Proof is in the Blockchain! appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Follow My Vote is happy to see the idea of voter suppression back in the news, as it offers a great opportunity to educate law makers of ground breaking technology available that could make voter suppression a non-issue. We know that there are much better and technological ways to increase voter turnout without sacrificing the integrity of the entire system.

Hillary Clinton knows she won’t be able to count on the more than 60 million votes that Barack Obama secured to win the White House in both 2008 and 2012. Instead of wallowing in self pity, Clinton’s campaign has come up with a game plan to make sure that the former Secretary of State’s path to the coronation remains unblemished: expanding the electorate. On May 29, Marc Elias, the lead lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, was among those who filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin challenging the state’s voter-ID law. The suit claims that the law, passed under Clinton’s likely 2016 rival Governor Scott Walker, suppresses voting rights:

The post Hillary Aims to Tear Down ID Laws to Increase Voter Turnout appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Under Florida law, a person who wants to vote must mail or deliver a voter registration form to an elections office, a decades-old system that elections supervisors say is cumbersome and expensive.

A bill by Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, would create an online voter registration system in 2018, after the next presidential election. Her bill (HB 1161) has the best chance of passage, because Republicans control both houses of the Legislature.

“Look how many times government has put technology in place and screwed it up.” Passidomo said. “I want to make sure it’s working. … If it could be done sooner, that would be great. There’s no intent to just drag it out.”

The League of Women Voters of Florida says it should be done sooner, and that people already have waited far too long for a basic convenience that’s now a matter of routine in nearly half of the country.

“It’s a mystery to us, and it should be of great concern to voters,” League President Deirdre Macnab said. “This is not rocket science. It’s a win-win. There’s no reason for delay.”

League members are expected to push for the quicker timetable this week when they hold their annual two-day lobbying blitz at the Capitol, including a gala at the historic Old Capitol with Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and other legislative leaders.

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