Seattle-area voters will be the first to cast ballots on smartphones

Shawn Knight

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In context: In past years, the board of supervisors election has seen less than one percent of eligible voters show up. Being able to cast a vote from a smartphone from virtually anywhere is expected to boost participation, but by how much?

Voters in one Seattle area district will be the first in the country to cast a ballot using their smartphone.

NPR was the first to report that every eligible voter in the King Conservation District, an area that encompasses Greater Seattle and more than 30 additional cities, will be able to vote in the upcoming election using their personal devices.

Ballots will be accepted from today through election day on February 11. As many as 1.2 million voters could participate in the historic board of supervisors election, the publication notes. Of course, there’s no guarantee that actual votes cast will come anywhere near that estimate.

Unfortunately, it’s not as clear cut as simply turning to technology to boost voter turnout as taking the tech route inevitably introduces a whole new set of security concerns. Even with the most secure of apps and platforms, the only real way to put them to the test is to deploy them in a real-world election and see how they perform.

A smaller-scale election like the one coming up in the King Conservation District could be an ideal test bed ahead of a higher profile election with more at stake.

Masthead credit: Vote by 3dfoto. Online voting by Kit8.net.

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It's all bad, but there's always black hats and white hats in the tech world. Not even just that, in the world in general. Online security will forever be a struggle because there will always be someone to try and break in. I'm curious to see how the online voting goes for Seattle. I figured Portland would get something like that first.
 
I guess Seattle really wants trump to win....

That would be a big NO. Seattle is the most liberal/socialist city behind San Francisco. The hate for Trump is off-the-charts. I should know - I live in Seattle. ;)

Having said that, it's a dumb idea. Until they can prove the votes can't be tampered with - and every day we hear about phones being hacked - this is just asking for trouble.
 
No doubt the dems/libs are trying to push this through so they can make up another excuse how they lost. The whole time they don't realize it's their hate of one man and the country that is costing them votes.

Votes should only be done by secured machines on a closed network. I would say not even a network at all. The fewer points of entry the better.
 
That would be a big NO. Seattle is the most liberal/socialist city behind San Francisco. The hate for Trump is off-the-charts. I should know - I live in Seattle. ;)

Having said that, it's a dumb idea. Until they can prove the votes can't be tampered with - and every day we hear about phones being hacked - this is just asking for trouble.
Okay, well implementing an idea like this when a major part of the impeachment trials is election tampering is really stupid. Seattle should know the risks associated with this above any other city in the nation, yet they decide to do it anyway.

So, yeah, I have a feeling Seattle is going to go trump this election since they are opening themselves up to election tampering.

The libs/Dems have gotten really stupid over the last 8-10 years, you guys get what you deserve....
 
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Luckily I live in a mail in ballot state, it's easier then busing people from a nursing home.(I'm in a retiree kind of area) No lines, maybe to quell critics, make people submit some sort of paper application before they can use a app. Then again you can get a college degree online, sign for a loan, get a credit card, access your bank, taxes etc. Some places last election had 4 hour+ lines due to new regulations on building sizes etc. Voter suppression is disgusting.

At the very least we need mail in ballots in all states. Most people have to work on Tues.... Unempl is what 4% atm? How about election week or month instead of one day... Asking to leave work to go stand in line for 4 hours probably isn't the easiest thing to do. A lot of young people in the city don't even own a car. They would have to take a bus for god knows how long just to get to an election site.

Thankfully I've mostly ignored politics\news for the last 6+ months, feels good. So with early voting mail in ballots, if you change your mind for some reason, you can still go in on election day and vote in person.

You can mail out your ballot between
[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]27 days before Election Day.[/TD]
[TD]4 days before Election Day.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
 
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Tell me are these people who chose electronic voting is safe ever been to a black hat conference or younger than 30 as they haven't a clue about what's deemed safe as a voting medium, hint there's no safe electronic/mechanical way to vote and never will, and BMW a have an app to open their cars which has been hacked already and it's only just come out, simple pen and paper and stop looking for ways to make it easier for millenials to vote, they'll just have to walk to a voting center and vote the old fashion way.
 
If you can't be bothered to go (considering your physical disabilities) to a building to cast your secured vote, then apparently it's not important enough to you and shouldn't count.
 
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