The Open Source Digital Voting Foundation, a non-profit public benefits corporation building a next generation elections technology framework that can achieve accuracy, transparency, trust and security in public elections, has been selected by the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics to put into practice a pilot study to support the delivery and return of overseas ballots. This will be a part of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act compliance.
Technology from OSDV's effort, the TrustTheVote Project, will be utilized in the primary election in Washington D.C. which will be held on September. The technology will be used to deliver and return the absentee voting kits of military, overseas and absentee voters.
A digital "Vote by Mail" ballot transport service will be applied by this pilot study. This services deals with the issues of late ballot arrival for long distance overseas and military voters without using email or fax, both digital alternatives that have major privacy and security problems.
Gregory Miller, the co-executive director and chief development officer for Open Source (News - Alert) Digital Voting Foundation, said that this election will be a significant first step to evaluate the next generation of voting technology and a clear infrastructure that is crucial to the country's democracy.
Miller added that technology has started the transformation of industries in the last decade by digitizing vital documents counting medical records, real estate titles and deeds, artwork and photographs. Today, OSDV is privileged to present a digital replication of a paper ballot and a digital way to transport that replication in a timely manner that guarantees that all legitimate ballots are counted.
A public review period of the pilot system is expected to be held by the Board of Elections and Ethics his summer before the test run at the September Primary Election on September 14.
Anuradha Shukla is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anuradha's article, please visit her columnist page.