Foreign Co. Running Online Ballot Process in Utah Rep. Open Caucuses

The Wall Street Journal dubbed the Republican party’s online adventure on Tuesday as “one of the biggest online votes conducted so far in the U.S.” and the “largest experiment with online Presidential voting since 2004, when Michigan allowed Democrats to vote in a party caucus via the Internet.”

Utah residents will have the option of casting ballots in the Republican Presidential contest using computers, tablets, and smartphones next week.

Online “polls” will be open between 7:00 a.m. and 11 p.m. on March 22. Voters will get a receipt that will verify that their vote was recorded correctly. The state party declined to release the number of online voter registrations that it has received.

“We expect all the jurisdictions across the U.S. to take notice and to look at this experience as something to study and, hopefully, follow,” said Antonio Mugica, Founder and Chief Executive of Smartmatic Group, a U.K. company, that is an election-equipment vendor that is running the Utah election.

Mugica addressed security concerns about online voting, telling the Journal that Smartmatic has security protocols and backups of the election data should a recount be needed. He said he wasn’t aware of any security breaches.

The Chairman of Smartmatic’s board, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, currently serves on the Board of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and has close ties to the billionaire.

His biography is posted openly on Smartmatic’s website, and shows close associations between Malloch-Brown and Soros, a major donor to the Democratic Party and hundreds of liberal and radical-left groups.

Besides their worldwide headquarters in London, Smartmatic lists offices in 13 other countries. Their U.S. offices are located in Boca Raton, Florida.

Tuesday’s Utah GOP Caucuses are considered an important test for online voting, which seems poised to expand in future elections. Last month, Microsoft’s vote-counting technology was utilized in the Iowa Caucus.

Obama last week called for future online voting while speaking at the South by Southwest technology and music festival. He said the technology world should debate “how can we create safe, secure, smart systems for people to be able to vote much easier online.”

In a press release, Smartmatic’s Mugica responded directly to Obama’s call for online voting, stating, “President Obama’s call was surprising in only one respect, that it caused a stir.”

“In a world where we can buy a house, take a degree course, and access government services online, it does not make sense that elections don’t use tried and tested technology,” added Mugica. “I agree with the President. The future of democracy is digital.”

In January 2014, Obama’s 10-person Presidential Commission on Election Administration released its recommendations for reforming the U.S. election process, including transitioning to voting via tablet computers and other technologies.

The Commission recommended:

Software-only products can be integrated with off-the-shelf commercial hardware components such as computers, laptops, tablets, scanners, printers, and even machine-readable code scanners and signature pad products. Tablet computers such as iPads are common components of these new technologies. They can be integrated into the check-in, voting, and verification processes in the polling place.

The commission highlighted new technologies in which the voter can “pre-fill” sample ballots at home to be scanned later at the polling place.

The panel dismissed concerns about hacking. The commission stated: “The fact that a tablet or off-the-shelf computer can be hacked or can break down does not mean such technology is inherently less secure than existing ballot marking methods if proper precautions are taken.”

Why are we using technology that has not been proven it is hack proof and why not an American company?











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Presidential Commission on Election Administration

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration was officially launched May 21, 2013, following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union pledge to identify non-partisan ways to shorten lines at polling places, promote the efficient conduct of elections, and provide better access to the polls for all voters.

The 10-member Commission will submit a final report to the President within six months of its first public meeting, which is expected to be held in Washington in June. Headed by Co-Chairs Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg, the Commissioners are experts in election administration, policy and procedures, or leaders from customer service-oriented businesses and industry.

The Commission was created by Executive Order 13639, Establishment of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. Commissioners were appointed by the President. They are:

· Robert F. Bauer, Co-Chair and member – Partner, Perkins Coie LLP

· Benjamin L. Ginsberg, Co-Chair and Member – Partner, Patton Boggs LLP

· Brian Britton, Member – Vice President, Global Park Operations and Planning at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts

· Joe Echevarria, Member – Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte LLP

· Trey Grayson, Member – Director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University

· Larry Lomax, Member – Clark County (Nevada) Registrar

· Michele Coleman Mayes, Member – Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for the New York Public Library

· Ann McGeehan, Member – Assistant General Counsel of the Texas County and District Retirement System

· Tammy Patrick, Member – Federal Compliance Officer for the Maricopa County (Arizona) Elections Department

· Christopher Thomas, Member – Director of Elections in the Michigan Department of State

Nathaniel Persily will serve as Senior Research Director for the Commission. He is the Beekman Professor of Law and Political Science at Columbia Law School, and as of July 1, 2013, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

The Commission was created under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, with staff and support services provided by the U.S. General Services Administration. The Commission will be disbanded 30 days after it presents its final report to the President.

Voting Issues the Commission Will Consider:

1. The number, location, management, operation, and design of polling places.
2. The training, recruitment, and number of poll workers.
3. Voting accessibility for uniformed and overseas voters.
4. The efficient management of voter rolls and poll books.
5. Voting machine capacity and technology.
6. Ballot simplicity and voter education.
7. Voting accessibility for individuals with disabilities, limited English proficiency, and other special needs.
8. Management of issuing and processing provisional ballots in the polling place on Election Day.
9. The administration of absentee ballot programs.
10. The adequacy of contingency plans for natural disasters and other emergencies that may disrupt elections.
11. Other issues related to the efficient administration of elections that the Co-Chairs agree are necessary and appropriate to the Commission's work.

With around 40% of registered voters declaring themselves as not belonging to a political party, or independent voters, why are there no members of any organizations representing these voters on this panel?

These 11 issues are looking at the final part of the political process, the vote. What is missing is how do we change the two sides of ballot access, more candidates on the ballot and all eligible voters, voting.

CLICK HERE to view the commission's website.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Presidential Commission on Election Administration

Obama announced the formation of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

The commission will be chaired by Bob Bauer, former general counsel for the Obama campaign, and Ben Ginsberg, a former top election lawyer for Romney's 2012 operation.

The commission is one of a number of efforts the Obama administration is making to address the problems that plagued voting on Election Day 2012. The commission, which will focus specifically on Election Day issues and not broader voting reform.

On Friday, November 16, 2012, Assistant Attorney General Perez spoke at the George Washington University Law School Symposium. He discussed the Civil Rights Division’s work to protect the fundamental civil right that is the lifeblood of our democracy: the right to vote.

Some of the changes addressed what we can do both to protect the right to vote, and to improve the voting process:

1. Ensure that every eligible person entering a social service office can register to vote.

2. It should be the government’s responsibility to automatically register citizens to vote, by compiling, from databases that already exist, a list of all eligible residents in each jurisdiction. Of course, these lists would be used solely to administer elections and would protect essential privacy rights.

3. Election officials should work together to establish a program of permanent, portable registration – so that voters who move can vote at their new polling place on Election Day. Until that happens, we should implement fail-safe procedures to correct voter-roll errors and omissions, by allowing every voter to cast a regular, non-provisional ballot on Election Day. Several states have already taken this step.

4. Same-day registration is a reform we should be considering seriously – it would both facilitate election administration and promote electoral participation. For the 2012 election, eight states plus the District of Columbia had same-day registration in place. (Two more states have recently enacted it and will implement it next year – California, and Connecticut.) And we know that it increases participation: in both the 2008 and 2010 general elections, each of the eight states with same-day registration had higher turnout of the voting-eligible population than the national average. In fact, for the 2008 presidential election, five of the six states with the highest turnout in the country were states with same-day registration. Preliminary turnout estimates for the 2012 election show that this pattern will likely continue.

5. Voter fraud is not acceptable. But we also need to reform deceptive election practices and dishonest efforts to prevent certain voters from casting their ballots. Over the years, we’ve seen all sorts of attempts to gain partisan advantage by keeping people away from the polls – from literacy tests and poll taxes, to misinformation campaigns telling people that Election Day has been moved, or that only one adult per household can cast a ballot. Senators Schumer and Cardin recently introduced legislation that would deter and punish such harmful practices. This bill has sparked and helped to advance a critically important dialogue across – and beyond – Capitol Hill.

6. Provisional ballots - In some states and elections, large segments of the electorate are required to cast a provisional ballot instead of a regular ballot on election day, for any of a number of reasons. The Justice Department will be considering whether we need to propose concrete solutions, such as national standards for counting provisional ballots for federal elections, to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised by moves close to an election, by appearing in the wrong polling place or precinct, or by poll worker errors.

7. It’s time to rethink our largely partisan system of state and local election administration. We risk leaving our election processes open to partisan mischief – or to the perception of such mischief. We should have a serious conversation about solutions to this risk, including developing an entirely professionalized and non-partisan system for administering our elections.

I am very interested in the concept of developing an entirely professionalized and non-partisan system for administering our elections and will write more about this in the future.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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