News & Insights
We’re Making History in Real Time.
Our timely insights share informed perspectives on the rapidly evolving story of Election Technology, as it unfolds.
On the Civic Technology Landscape, the TrustTheVote Project is an Atypical Structure, Part Two
The second of two blog posts exploring how the TrustTheVote Project fits in the "civic tech" landscape.
Roundup of the Roundtable on Reinventing.
The TrustTheVote Project CDO Greg Miller joined a panel of technology experts for a lively discussion on ways technology can expand the way citizens interact with their elected officials and their governement.
Three-Step Test for "Open Source"
To our elections official stakeholders, Chief Technology Officer John Sebes covers a point that seems to be popping up in discussions more and more. There seems to be some confusion about what "open source" means in the context of software used for election administration or voting. That's understandable, because some election I.T. folks, and some current vendors, may not be familiar with the prior usage of the term "open source" -- especially since it is now used in so many different ways to describe (variously), people, code, legal agreements, etc. So, John hopes to get our Stakeholders back to basics on this.
On the Civic Technology Landscape, the TrustTheVote Project is an Atypical Structure
So where does the TrustTheVote Project fit in the broader “civic tech” movement that so many people in the technology world write and talk about? This is the first of two posts on this thought.
Online Voting Remains Too Much of a Downside Risk
To our stakeholder community: So now comes another study about online voting. But this one, from a respectable think tank in Washington D.C., shouldn’t make election administrators worry too much. No need to brace for a legislative blunder, so long as this paper is taken seriously, as it should be. On the other hand, there doesn’t yet appear to be a replacement for your DRE machinery – for those of you still relying on them. Here's our "take."
Open Silliness: The Security Flaw Blame Game
Last Tuesday Chris Strohm and Jordan Robertson posted an article on Bloomberg Government (BGOV) (now available on Bloomberg.com) about open source, suggesting that recent hacks on web services have “shaken the confidence in the free software movement.” Really? Whose confidence, precisely?
Ms. Voting Matters' Take: "No Magic Will Bring About Online Voting"
Ms. Voting Matters would really like to wave her magic wand and allow everyone on the planet to cast their votes, securely, with their smart phones, tablets, or laptops. Really truly, I would do it if I could. But I can’t. The Internet of Voting is just not safe and secure enough now, no matter how much we all would wish it so. Let me share why.
Siri, How Busy is my Polling Place?
BusyBooth, an app being developed by the TrustTheVote Project, is the public-service, polling-place app voters have been waiting for.
Ms. Voting Matters Explains: Online Voter Registration
Ms. Voting Matters tackles all your Online Voter Registration questions.
Rock the Registration Day!
On National Voter Registration Day, we note that The TrustTheVote Project is behind an open source effort to innovate online voter registration tools for States and public registration services. Here's the back story.
Bracing for Inevitable Manipulation
Presidential and congressional campaigns today are high-stakes, high-tech efforts with lots of money and sophistication behind them. They have the advantage of “big data” collected from all of their outreach and social media efforts. Facebook, Twitter, other social media platforms, also have that “big data” advantage.
Election administrators, on the other hand, don’t. Well, actually they do, but they don’t have the sophistication and money to do a lot with it. SImilarly, the public at large doesn't really have easy access to this data. Election data needs to be open data, and we're working on it.
“Digital Voting”—Don’t believe everything you think
In at recent blog post we examined David Plouffe’s recent Wall Street Journal forward-looking op-ed [paywall] and rebalanced his vision with some practical reality.
Now, let’s turn to Plouffe’s notion of “digital voting.” Honestly, that phrase is confusing and vague. We should know: it catalyzed our name change last year from Open Source Digital Voting Foundation (OSDV) to Open Source Election Technology Foundation (OSET).
David Plouffe’s View of the Future of Voting — We Agree and Disagree
David Plouffe, President Obama’s top political and campaign strategist and the mastermind behind the winning 2008 and 2012 campaigns, wrote a forward-looking op-ed [paywall] in the Wall Street Journal recently about the politics of the future and how they might look.
He touched on how technology will continue to change the way campaigns are conducted – more use of mobile devices, even holograms, and more micro-targeting at individuals. But he also mentioned how people might cast their votes in the future, and that is what caught our eye here at the TrustTheVote Project. There is a considerable chasm to cross between vision and reality.
Expanding Our Leadership Assures Our Potential
So, by now you may have seen the news. We were stoked on Tuesday to announce former Facebook executive Chris Kelly has joined our Foundation’s Board of Directors while the former U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra has joined as a strategic adviser. Today, I want to share some more about what this means for us, and for the TrustTheVote Project.
In short, this is a big deal. In many ways.
