Some of the many voters in Florida’s Republican primary elections are making their selection with the use of an iPad along with software designed by Everyone Counts.
Lori Steele, Chairman & CEO of Everyone Counts indicates that voter participation in previous trials of iPads being used as tools to cast votes saw astronomical gains of 1,500%. While it is difficult to tell the reason for the surge, be it an interest in seeing how the new technology works or just increased awareness due to the perceived cool factor (people who tried it are bound to spread the word). Nonetheless Steele is just happy that by using this method there is no chance of hanging chads or lost votes.
When asked how her system works, Steel indicated that the eLect platform “enables a complete end-to-end election to be run online or for key elements in the election process to be conducted online, including ballot-delivery, ballot-marking and ballot return.”
Steele did go on to explain that the user of this system is expected to cut costs of elections in half with the possibility that these iPads could then be re-purposed by the government when not being employed for use as voting tools.
I suspect the biggest concern for most of us is security and reliability. Steele assures everyone that their infrastructure is impenetrable:
“In short, we have dozens of layers of security in our technology as well as our processes, including military-grade encryption technology and intensive oversight procedures. In the hundreds of binding government elections Everyone Counts has deployed, there has never been a security breach, not a single vote has been lost, and no election has ever been disputed or decertified. Also, our Software-as-a-Service technology and solution does not rely upon designated voting equipment and machines, and in fact runs on open-code programs which are fully transparent and auditable.”
It is likely safer to trust this technology than the existing antiquated hardware still in place in many states. Using this new system there is a sophisticated audit trail not to mention a significant number of highly-skilled eyes focused on these trials to ensure they are successful. Oh, and there is the cool factor too of course.