Getting an absentee ballot has historically been a long process, mostly because voting by absentee ballot depends on snail mail. Three states are changing that, offering ballots online in the current slate of primary elections.
California, Florida, and Virgina have each introduced a Web-based system for getting absentee ballots for the primaries, which can be printed on the spot or even filled out on-line (this differs from state to state as they each have different rules). Mailing a request for a ballot back to the relevant secretary of state can be tough to do for some people, especially those in the military. “If you are on a ship or on a mobile base it’s much more difficult,” Kim Nelson, director of e-government at Microsoft, told Discovery News.
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She noted that in past elections, such as in 2008, many military people were unable to get their votes in on time, so they weren’t counted. A new law passed in 2009 requires that service members receive their ballots at least 45 days before elections to ensure that they have time to get out to their bases and back.
The software is being provided by Democracy Live, an Issaquah, Wash.-based company. Microsoft is providing the cloud-based platform, called Azure, that Democracy Live’s suite runs on. Nelson said the platform as a service model lends itself better to situations like ballots, which are seasonal and have heavy demand for short periods.
One thing to remember: this isn’t Internet voting. The logins generally are based on a name and birth date (basically what’s in the voter registration database) and the voter only gets a ballot, not a vote. The vote itself still has to be mailed or faxed in, just as before. This obviates the need for really heavy security. (The security concerns are basically those of paper ballots at that point). Even so, it is a step in getting absentee ballots to people who are in places that getting mail is a problem.
Bryan Finney, CEO of Democracy Live, said such electronic balloting systems are already in use for local elections in several jurisdictions. One, used in Kitsap county, near Seattle, even has what he calls a “live ballot” which lets voters click on a candidate’s name and see a short video that gives more information (about their positions on certain issues, for example).
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Finney said the electronic ballots have a lot of other uses than for absentee voters. For people who can’t get to polling places, such as the severely disabled or elderly who aren’t mobile, some way of printing a ballot at home is welcome. Other voters could even use the system as a sample ballot to take with them to a polling place before casting votes.
Such electronic ballots could also be adapted to mobile devices, in which a sample ballot is filled out and a bar or QR code presented at the polling station. There are lots of possibilities. “The whole Facebook generation will demand a different paradigm,” Finney said.
Image: Democracy Live
Tags: Cloud Computing, Computer Software, Government, Internet, Politics
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