Voting From the Privacy of Your Couch

Governments in 42 countries are using software from Scytl to bring elements of their election online, from registering voters to consolidating results.

The company, CEO is Pere Valles and based in Barcelona, Spain, sells software to put each step of the election process online, including poll worker training and campaign spending. To vote online, registered voters generally need to visit a government website and enter an electronic ID and password. When a voter submits and signs a digital ballot, software encrypts the data on the person's devise and provides a digital receipt.

Developing countries typically use Scytl's technology for fraud prevention, but some officials, including those in about 1,400 U.S. counties, use it to cut costs and improve participation. "If you follow the instructions, it's actually pretty simple," says Carol Thompson, manager of Alaska's Absentee and Petition Office, which hired Scytl in 2012 to create a system for Alaskans to receive and return ballots online. The state warns online voters they're waiving their right to a secret ballot, meaning they know their votes could be exposed to a hack. But, Thompson says, "we haven't has any issues, and we expect use to keep increasing."

Created in 2001 as a spin-off from a cryptography research group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, there are now 625 employees.

Ian Brightwell, Chief Information Officer for the Electoral Commission in the southeastern Australian State of New South Wales hired Sctyl to improve the state's electronic voting system for elections held in March.

Lori Steele Contorer, CEO of Everyone Counts says her software, which handles government elections is at least as secure as Scytl's. She says she expects the U.S. Election assistance Commission t give Everyone Counts the first Federal Certification for online voting next year.

Many election watchdogs say software isn't yet secure enough to be trusted, and they're concerned that Scytl and its competitors haven't developed a way for third parties to independently verify results.

To soothe worried governments, Scytl often first pitches more minor functions, like voter education and personnel training. An online voting system is due for the Swiss Government next year will make it easier for authorities to audit and verify vote tallies, addressing the main concerns of the academic community.

Scytl's next next big test will be handling reporting for every polling place in Spain on Dec. 20, 2015. The Spanish Ministry of Interior will publish results on a public website in near-real time. This test objective isn't fraud prevention but speed.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

US Election Results Reporting in Jeopardy

The world's dominant Internet voting company has purchased the U.S.'s dominant election results reporting company.

When you view your local or state election results on the Internet, they often appear to be owned by the county elections division, in over 525 US jurisdictions you are actually redirected to a private corporate site controlled by SOE software, which operates under the name ClarityElections.com.

The good news is that this firm promptly reports precinct-level detail in downloadable spreadsheet format.

The bad news is that this centralizes one middleman access point for over 525 jurisdictions in AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, KY, MI, KS, IL, IN, NC, NM, MN, NY, SC, TX, UT, WA., and is growing.

As local election results funnel through SOE's servers (typically before they reach the public elsewhere), those who run the computer servers for SOE essentially get "first look" at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.

In 2004, many Americans were justifiably concerned when, days before the presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell redirected Ohio election night results through the Tennessee-based server for several national Republican Party operations. This redirects results reporting to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global.

A mitigation against fraud by SOE insiders has been the separation of voting machine systems from the SOE results reports. Because most US jurisdictions require posting evidence of results from each voting machine at the precinct, public citizens can organize to examine these results to compare with SOE results.

With the merger of SOE and SCYTL, that won't work (if SCYTL's voting system is used). When there are two truly independent sources of information, the public can perform its own "audit" by matching one number against the other. These two independent sources, however, will now be merged into one single source: an Internet voting system controlled by SCYTL, with a results reporting system also controlled by SCYTL.

With SCYTL internet voting, there will be no ballots. No physical evidence. No chain of custody. No way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes, chain of custody, or the count. SCYTL is moving into or already running elections in: the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia.

SCYTL is based in Barcelona; its funding comes from international venture capital funds including Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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