“Future Thinkers is a podcast about the future of humankind and the exploration of consciousness.”

Follow My Vote is featured in the number 10 spot in the industry list alongside Democracy Earth. The voting industry section begins at 4:55 in the video. 

“Blockchain technology can be used for voter registration and identity verification, and electronic vote counting to ensure that only legitimate votes are counted, and no votes are changed or removed. Creating an immutable, publicly-viewable ledger of recorded votes would be a massive step toward making elections more fair and democratic. Democracy Earth and Follow My Vote are two startups aiming to disrupt democracy itself through creating blockchain-based online voting systems for governments.”

The Future Thinkers List of 19 Industries The Blockchain Will Disrupt:

1. Banking and Payments
2. Cyber Security
3. Supply Chain Management
4. Forecasting
5. Networking and the Internet of Things
6. Insurance
7. Private Transport and Ride Sharing
8. Cloud Storage
9. Charity
10. Voting
11. Government
12. Public Benefits
13. Healthcare
14. Energy Management
15. Online Music
16. Retail
17. Real Estate
18. Crowdfunding
19. Your Industry

Read more on the specific industries on futurethinkers.org

Learn more about Follow My Vote’s open source blockchain voting software. 

About the Author

Will Long is the Co-founder and Marketing Manager of Follow My Vote

The post Follow My Vote Highlighted In “19 Industries The Blockchain Will Disrupt” appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Bitcoin Magazine, which has featured Follow My Vote before, is actually a contributor on Nasdaq.com and is responsible for the article entitled “Four Ways the Blockchain Will Make the World a Better Place”

Here is what was written about us on Nasdaq.com:

“The blockchain is also being leveraged by startups that aim to improve the democratic process of regional and national elections. Election fraud is a common occurrence in developing countries, but as we have witnessed in the latest U.S. presidential elections, even the most developed countries can struggle to deliver a fair and democratic election process.

Voter registration and vote counting are two areas in which the distributed ledger technology can provide solutions. The blockchain can be used to digitally record all eligible voters and can be used to publicly record every single vote during elections. A startup that is tackling this area is Virginia-based Follow My Vote. Follow My Vote has developed an open-source digital voting platform for governments built on top of the distributed ledger technology with the aim to make elections more transparent and democratic.”

The article goes on to mention the following companies who are also making the world a better place with blockchain technology:

AID:Tech is currently working on digital identities for refugees.

Bitland & ChromaWay are separate companies both working on recording land ownership.

And BitGive tracks financial donations with blockchain.

The status of Follow My Vote

The article focuses on the application of our blockchain voting software for governments, and while it is true that our software could completely revolutionize government elections, we are not actively working with any governments to provide voting services at this time. Contact us if you represent a government, and wish to learn more about blockchain voting.

The truth is, our blockchain voting software has applications in numerous industries. To learn more, explore our use cases under the “Our Technology” tab.

Since our completion of the stake weighted voting software for BitShares, we are open to new contracts and business relationships.  We build open source end-to-end verifiable blockchain voting software.

Source: Nasdaq.com

Read this post on Steemit: steemit.com/@followmyvote

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

The post Nasdaq.com Features Follow My Vote & How Blockchain Will Make the World a Better Place appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Each time there is an election held anywhere in the democratic world, you will undoubtedly hear words like wrongdoing, mishandling, voter fraud and misconduct being thrown around. It has been this way since the dawn of democracy in ancient Athens almost 2500 years ago. Today, technology offers a solution so secure, even banks are adopting it’s principles.

What if there was a way that allowed for a secure voting process with greater transparency? What if this same way got rid of not just the highly insecure hackable voting machines, but also all of the inept polling officer and the long queues that every voter is forced to deal with?

This is where “Follow My Vote” comes in. Launched on July 4, 2012 by Adam Ernest, a Virginia Tech graduate, Follow My Vote functions on the principle of open and honest elections. How? By providing an online open source voting platform that promises transparency and a hassle-free electoral process with block-chain technology. Starting with a small group of  block-chain enthusiasts, Follow My Vote is now getting national attention in the mainstream. Representing at events like Politicon and Freedom Fest, Follow My Vote is making waves to grow grassroots support for their technology.

Although block-chain was invented for use with Bitcoin, the independent digital currency that is competing with the dollar, now, the ultra-safe technology for transactions is being adopted by private banks to compete. Our nation’s military wing, Homeland Security, is investing research into blockchain, to use it for cyber-security. Using “distributed ledgers” block chain is decentralized. Hacks are virtually impossible because a hack would have to occur on all distributed ledgers at the same time. Hacking a block-chain is virtually impossible with today’s most sophisticated hacking equipment.

Our current voting system is completely hackable. We all know we face sure risk remaining with the status quo? What kind of country are we to leave for future generations if we don’t even have a secure voting methods anyone can most certainly trust? When high-profile security firms endorse it, and it is estimated that around 10 million worldwide trust it for currency transactions with BitCoin, it’s only time before “we the people” claim our natural rights to ensure our votes are counted, with secure and transparent systems far more reliable than our current ones.

Back in 2012, world trends forecaster Gerald Celente predicted: “If we can bank online, we can vote online.”

Today, with blockchain technology, security is secure and everything can be audited. Blockchain is more certain than any methods of traditional vote counting by paper or conventional voting machines. Today, the viable transparency is becoming acceptable by top industries.

So while the online platform eliminates the need to be physically present to cast your ballot. Using verifiable identification for security, making sure no one can vote for anyone else, and that all voters are citizens, FMV also allows users to literally follow their vote and see where it is applied. This again proves beneficial in two ways. First, by allowing each user to ensure that their vote is not tampered with, and second, by empowering every voter with the ability to audit the election for themselves thus restoring faith in the democratic process. Vote details are put on a public ledger that allows FMV users to view and even vet an election’s results.

This has basically been the dream since the invention of the internet. But security was a major concern. Thanks to Follow My Vote’s un-crackable, asymmetrical cryptography, decentralized, verifiable public ledger system, and open-source software, all of these security concerns have not just been greatly reduced but solved to a great extent.

Bitcoin Magazine is archiving non-currency block-chain applications. Many, non-currency applications are being developed all over the world. Block-chain voting may just be one of the most game-changing applications of this revolutionary new technology.

You have a right to vote and that vote should not be compromised. With a history of voter fraud in this country, isn’t it time the people called for integrity in our voting system? A democratic republic must have a standard for vote security, now with the technology, we should settle for no less than 100% assurance in election results. It’s time the people unite and demand a solution that can secure a future, for and by the people in the U.S.A.

After a successful presentation in Sacramento, California, the company is now working to find states and communities interested in online voting. Follow My Vote Alpha has now been released and the software is ready for private enterprise to test drive the software. Once major endorsements, peer-reviewed studies and public outcry call for auditable online voting, it won’t be long before the grassroots of the United States, conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between, unite under the common banner of vote security. Follow My Vote technology will be the future of elections.

Nicolas is a former Follow My Vote Ambassador, whom has spent time educating people around the world on blockchain voting and Follow My Vote.

The post How We Can Stop All Voter Fraud appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Nathan Hourt, Follow My Vote Co-founder and CTO, is quoted several times throughout the article. Hourt eloquently explains risks that are neutralized with an end-to-end verifiable system.

We have included part of the Forbes article for you to read:

With accusations of election rigging and an unprecedented hack of a political party’s emails, voting security has not been this hot of an issue since Bush v. Gore and the Florida recount of 2000. Adding fuel to the fire is the FBI’s latest revelation of foreign hacking into two states’ election databases. Now, Washington officials are increasingly concerned that hackers will seek to infiltrate the decades-out-of-date voting machines with very little technical sophistication and manipulate votes cast for the next U.S. president in November.

Some cybersecurity experts have advocated for the ultimate security measure to protect U.S. elections from foreign tampering—that is, offline paper-based elections.

Yet in Virginia, the state that famously decommissioned its terrifyingly hackable voting machines last year, the startup Follow My Vote believes the solution to safeguard against vote rigging isn’t to revert to no or low-tech, but through the adoption of blockchain technology.

Aside from the obvious issue of scale, Follow My Vote’s cofounder and CTO Nathan Hourt considers paper-based voting systems precariously reliant on the procedural security of officials conducting their jobs correctly and honestly. In offline systems, “there is no way to detect a breach of security… no way to determine if all of the original ballots are still present, if any extra ballots have been added, or if any ballots have been tampered with,” Hourt argues. The risks are amplified in national elections. “The more voters a paper-based system attempts to accommodate, the easier it becomes for a fraudster to corrupt.”

Envisioning a future for e-voting

Follow My Vote aims to combat electoral fraud and protect user credentials by developing a convenient and secure end-to-end voting system that is also open-source and auditable. In their model, voters would skip the lines to cast votes online from home using a webcam and government-issued ID. The virtual electorate could then theoretically watch the election in real-time entrusting the veracity of results to the underlying blockchain auditability features.

How can a voting platform that touts transparency also be secure? Cryptography protects each ballot against tampering from end to end, keeping votes anonymous and immutable though tamper-evident on the blockchain ledger. Each voter can change his or her vote at any time during the election using a private key and unique voter ID.

Dr. Feng Hao co-lead of the Secure & Resilient Systems group at Newcastle University’s School of Computing Science argues that “end to end verifiable voting systems have the merit of allowing a voter to verify if their vote is correctly recorded and correctly included into the tallying process—and if ballots are missing in transit or modified, it can be detected by voters.”

Read the rest of the article on Forbes. 

Learn more about blockchain voting.

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

The post Follow My Vote Featured On Forbes For Blockchain Voting appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Follow My Vote can be extremely useful to established and future governments. We can provide end to end verifiable voting systems that can keep elections truly honest and accurate. Many of the blockchain startups featured are dependent on new laws or shifts in the way people are governed and able to issue securities. At Follow My Vote we pride ourselves on being a blockchain startup that has software that can be implemented now. Governments that allow online voting and organizations such as businesses and political parties can use our system with ease for truly honest online elections.

Venture Radar is a a company based in London, UK that essentially connects organizations with new technologies and expertise to help them grow and innovate. They have a “company discovery engine” that trawls the web to discover, retrieve, and organize different kinds of companies.

Many different types of blockchain startups are included in this info-graphic. They have included companies tackling areas such as smart contracts (which we know BitShares for), cloud storage, social networking, anti-counterfeiting, digital identity, supply chains, ownership, prediction markets and the internet of things.

If you don’t know what a blockchain technology is, and thus have no clue to what blockchain startups do, check out our “how blockchain technology works” video!

Source: Venture Radar

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

The post Follow My Vote Named One Of The Top Blockchain Startups By Venture Radar appeared first on Follow My Vote.

The article that Follow My Vote was mentioned in was covering  a new Australian political party called the Neutral Voting Bloc. This political party is going to be using blockchain technology to register and retain the history of opinions for its members. Those members and their voices will then be represented in the Australian parliament.

We are excited to see blockchain technology utilized in the political spectrum. Follow My Vote is pushing for provably honest election and decentralized voting in legitimate elections around the world. We have also envisioned companies and political parties gauging consensus within their respective organizations with blockchain technology. It is a great feeling to see others pushing for these same ideals.

The following snippet is from the article where Follow My Vote and our decentralized voting system was mentioned. Crypto News Day also linked to one of our cooler info-graphics on blockchain technology which can be seen here.

Blockchain technology lends itself well to use in voting systems. By providing a secure way for each person to register their vote on a public record whilst still maintaining the option for users to remain anonymous, and with little possibility for anybody to tamper with those votes, the blockchain is able to offer significant improvements over current systems in terms of security and transparency. Several tech start-ups are aiming to provide off-the-shelf solutions for blockchain voting, such as FollowMyVote and BitCongress.

Source: CryptoNewsDay.com

About the author: Will Long is the Marketing Manager of Follow My Vote. He enjoys writing about decentralized voting and the revolutionary possibilities it contains.

The post Follow My Vote And Our Decentralized Voting Solution Featured On Crypto News Day appeared first on Follow My Vote.

As soon as the decision that stated (5-4) that for-profit companies can reject the contraception mandate based on religious freedom grounds was released, Democratic legislators were quick to not only criticize, but go a step further. The legislators announced that if the Supreme Court would not mandate contraception coverage for women they would take steps to do so. This proposition raised by Senator Patty Murray and touted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is deeply troubling.

When framing the government of the United States the founders sought to create three separate branches that would be able to check the others’ power so no branch could obtain too much power and encroach on the liberties of the populace. However, with legislators openly coming out and saying that they will look for ways around the decision of the highest Court in the country, it raises an alarm. These legislators simply don’t believe that the Court’s decision holds power and significance in today’s society.

The Supreme Court struck down the provision of the Affordable Care Act, which itself is a law that they helped to define, based on grounds of encroachment on the religious freedom of these companies.

This decision was grounded on Constitutional principles that, should it be discarded by legislators that want to impose their will and interests on a piece of the law, will in effect show a dramatic decrease in the power of the Judicial Branch.

It is imperative that the Judicial Branch remains to check the other two branches of government to ensure the protection of our three-branch system.

Now of course, these legislators may not be acting out of blatant disregard for the Supreme Court, but it is a little unnerving that in light of an unfavorable decision that was made to follow the Constitution. They are looking for ways to still include this coverage in the Affordable Care Act one way or another.

The coming months will be a true test of the power of not only the Supreme Court, but of the President and Congress as they fight to pursue their mandates and shape arguably the most controversial law of our time.

It is important to remember this quote from Thomas Jefferson. “”The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people and every blessing of society depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.”

The post Three Equal Branches? appeared first on Follow My Vote.

What is expected from the government in its everyday interactions with the American people is becoming much different than it was fifty, twenty five, or even ten years ago. Americans are facing stark choices as to what kind of government they want in Washington D.C., and moderation and compromise appears to be out the window.

We have always been somewhat of a self interested people. Some critics say, that is the byproduct of a very open society and an economy based on a capitalistic system.

However, others argue that with the increase in the role the government plays in our lives everyday, such as with, healthcare, social security, tax breaks, student loans, or welfare, corporate or otherwise, Americans are now looking at public policy that transcends the good of the country and gets back to the prior point of the individuals self interest.

Now we have a situation where a majority of Americans are voting selfishly rather than selflessly.

And naturally, I can’t blame them. But this way of thinking will have a direct impact when it comes time to vote in this November election and again in 2016. The question a large majority of people will be asking is not, “which candidate is best for the country?” But, “which candidate is going to make sure I get the most benefits, the lowest taxes, the highest welfare” … the list goes on.

Liberals want to give benefits to everyone and encourage ever expanding government and conservatives want to cut everything and advocate for smaller government. This seems to be the status quo.

The problem is, people are no longer voting for what policy is best for the country, what will get us out of debt, or help our children afford school, or help our veterans. Instead, people are voting for the candidate that promises them the most stuff, whatever that may be, and this worries me.

Lawmakers are equally at fault in this scenario as well. Compromise seems to be taboo in Washington, and gridlock is the norm. It’s time for these policymakers to come to terms with the fact that the self interest of the individual may not always be in the best interest of the country.

The fact of the matter is that moving forward we, as a nation, have to take responsibility for our future, for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children. If we go broke, or our economy becomes so weak that it cannot sustain the costs of healthcare, schools, or other infrastructure, then the America that was once a shining city on a hill will be a city without power.

Moving forward, let’s hold lawmakers accountable; but, more importantly, let’s hold each other accountable to elect leaders that do represent the greater good for this country.

Citizens need to take responsibility for the future of this country, to secure it for generations to come. That is the noblest self-interest of them all.

John F. Kennedy famously once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” This message seems to be slipping away among voters in our time; and, for the sake of America, I hope we can remember to try to live by his words a little bit more now, and in the future.

The post The Changing Face of America’s Priorities appeared first on Follow My Vote.

His first executive order demands that coal producing energy plants cut carbon emissions by 30% by the year 2030. This comes amid renewed concerns about global warming as a result of human fossil fuel consumption. However, Congress has been unable to agree on a comprehensive energy bill, which led to the President issuing an executive order to enact the legislation.

Then, the President signed an executive order that will allow college graduates to only pay 10% of their income toward college loan payments in a push to lower the financial credit burdens on graduates plagued by large debt.  Furthermore, this legislation would allow for the forgiveness of remaining student debt after twenty years in the program.

This executive order has also been met with opposition as many lawmakers argue that it does not address the root causes of higher education becoming too expensive for most students to afford.

The significance of these executive orders goes beyond their policy implications. The fact of the matter is that the President is bypassing Congress to push through legislation, both on his agenda and late in the presidency.

Our current Congress is arguably the most partisan in history.  Numerous bills are proposed by one side just to sit in the other house for months on end with no result.  Although many critics argue the constitutionality of the executive order, a divided Congress in gridlock doesn’t make passing legislation any easier.

The post Back to Back Executive Orders: Obama Tries to Push Mandate Amid Divided Congress appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Critics argue that this is rapidly taking the regular people out of politics, as multi-billionaires are able to seemingly buy candidates seats in Congress and a spot in the White House with their incredible ability to raise millions of dollars.

This trend may seem like it is coming up in the press only recently, but big money campaign financing has been around a long time. Since the dawn of the 20^th century special interest groups and billionaires have been fundraising to campaign for their favored candidates. Nixon received almost $5 million for both of his campaigns; and, John Kerry had George Soros throw $27 million his way to try and get him elected in 2004.

These are just a few examples of the amount of money being spent on candidates. In today’s volatile political climate, however numbers are reaching record heights. Environmentalist Tom Steyer has pledged $100 million to try and push climate change advocates into Congressional seats throughout the country.

In races for Congress, expenditures have reached record highs with candidates spending an average of over $1.2 million. In the Senate, these numbers are climbing as well.

The energy billionaires, the Koch brothers, have fundraised and donated tens of millions to various conservative candidates throughout the years and are on pace this year to raise record amounts  of money (over $400 million) to push a conservative majority in Congress.

The fact of the matter is that these mega donors are now spending more than the political parties themselves to get their candidates elected. The tipping point of this trend occurred in 2012 with mega donors spending almost $1 billion more than the two parties.

Their control over who makes it out of the primaries is growing stronger and this trend shows no sign of reversing anytime soon. The power of who gets elected these days is becoming less the choice of the people, but rather it is being placed more in the hands of a select few that have the money to outspend the competition.

In a definition of a republic, the supreme power is supposed to be held by all the people not a select few self-interested billionaires, which begs the question: WE at follow my vote want to know. . .

The post Buying a Seat Isn’t Anything New, It’s Just Getting More Expensive : The Big Money Story appeared first on Follow My Vote.