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.

Its Our Birthday! A Reflection on How We Do What We Do

Wow.  How time flies.  Its our birthday this week! (Monday the 17th to be precise; it was a Friday in November 2006.)  We are 8-years old!  You know, that's a long life by the measure of most commercial technology ventures.  But a bit different as a non-profit technology venture. So, we wanted to post something today in honor of our birthday and the progress we've made.  Please read on...

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Ms. Voting Matters Ms. Voting Matters

A Great Way to Help Our Project While You Shop

Amazon and the OSET Foundation are teaming up this holiday to help public fund raising for the TrustTheVote Project. Read about this simple awesome way to help the cause of a better voting experience while you shop.

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The Moose Lurking in the Room

To hec with the elephant (regardless of who you think will control Congress after election day), the real beast in the room may be a Moose -- Alaska style.  Our CTO notes an article from yesterday that points out how Alaska's close U.S. senatorial race, combined with their allowing ballots to be digitally returned across the Internet, may pose the greatest threat to a derailed election we've seen yet. 

But the real point John makes is that sadly, Alaskan voters may not even be aware of the risks and who in this case is watching over their ballots -- at least those returned in the inherently insecure manner of the Internet, no matter how "secure" the "experts" are claiming the process to be.  If the ballot return system in Alaska were truly as secure as their vendor claims, then Banks would be using their methods, and the massive amounts of hacked customer personal information at major brands this year might have been alleviated.  Have a look and give us your take.

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Ballots Are the "ROI" of Campaign Financing
Commentary, Election Technology Reform Gregory Miller Commentary, Election Technology Reform Gregory Miller

Ballots Are the "ROI" of Campaign Financing

The Center for Responsive Politics (“CRP”), OpenSecrets.Org published an article Tuesday detailing the jaw-dropping amount of money that has been invested already, and what is likely to be spent on this midterm election campaign cycle.  CRP is projecting that almost $4B will be expended on this election cycle. 

Presumably, all that spending is to encourage voters to cast ballots in favor of the candidate or cause the spending is directed at advocating.  But what is the impact of that spending if the systems on which those ballots are cast and counted are literally falling apart?  We submit that ballots are actually the "ROI" of campaign financing. And if one gives to any campaign, they ought to also commensurately support efforts to improve HOW America vote.  You see, today, how America votes is now just as important as who or what America votes for...

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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.

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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.

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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."

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Commentary, Internet Voting, Open Source, Risk Ms. Voting Matters Commentary, Internet Voting, Open Source, Risk Ms. Voting Matters

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.

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Bracing for Inevitable Manipulation
Commentary Ms. Voting Matters Commentary Ms. Voting Matters

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.

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“Digital Voting”—Don’t believe everything you think

“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).

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