Statement on Sen. Wyden’s Letter

While we have not been contacted by Senator Wyden or his office directly, we welcome any and all additional security audits by the Department of Defense and NSA regarding our platform.

We remain committed to providing as much transparency as possible about our system while at the same time needing to protect our intellectual property as one of the youngest election companies in the country. We are confident that all additional audits will come to the same conclusions that the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office, the Denver Elections Division, the Utah County Elections Office and independent security organizations such as ShiftState Security have: that all our elections to date have been conducted safely and securely, with no reported issues with the accurate tabulation and recording of ballots, and that the overall system is very robust. 

Voatz originated after winning a hackathon and was founded by cybersecurity and mobile technology experts. Security has been our utmost priority since day one. We have conducted 54 successful elections (public and private) over the past 3 years, some of which have involved active attempts to break-in that have all been thwarted in real time. We strongly believe that the technology to enable safe and accessible remote voting for certain demographics is here and ready.  At the same time, we have been very deliberate about rolling out the platform to historically disadvantaged demographics (such as military voters, overseas citizens and the disability community) in a slow, step-by-step manner via well-designed pilot programs. Such well-designed pilot programs are extremely necessary to educate all stakeholders and to help improve the overall security of our current absentee voting process wherein voters return ballots via insecure email, facsimile or unreliable postal mail. Mobile voting offers significantly better security, reliability and accessibility when compared to many of the existing options available to several absentee voters. 

Our advanced intrusion prevention capability was clearly demonstrated as part of the election pilots we conducted in West Virginia last year. Attempts to tamper with the system were actively thwarted and reported to the relevant jurisdictions for any law enforcement action they may deem appropriate. Voatz was the first election systems provider in the world to launch a public bug bounty program and recently initiated the third cycle of our innovative testing process that actively involves the community at large to help improve the product. We continue to encourage interested security professionals and researchers to join our bounty program and provide us with their valuable feedback.

Voatz has met the standards for blockchain security and auditability as outlined by the National Cybersecurity Center (NCC), and anonymizes and secures ballot information using National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) approved encryption algorithms over a highly distributed, resilient and tamper-resistant infrastructure. Starting with the Denver pilots earlier this year, Voatz made an open audit tool available to the public to enable independent tallying and end-to-end auditing of the election. NCC has been managing these citizen audits and has determined all of the audits to be a success. 100% of the voter-verified digital receipts matched the corresponding paper ballots that were tabulated using the optical scanners. There were no issues with the tabulation or recording of the ballots and auditors were pleased with the results overall. We encourage citizens to join the next iteration of our public audit programs which will begin in a few days’ time.

As soon as appropriate standards for remote ballot marking systems are available as part of the VVSG (Voluntary Voting System Guidelines) 2.0, Voatz looks forward to participating in the Federal Election Assistance Commission’s Testing and Certification program in order to receive accreditation that the Voatz platform has all the necessary functionality, accessibility, and security capabilities required under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). In the meanwhile, Voatz continues to conduct advanced levels of security testing and has already started to collaborate with the DHS NCATS teams to conduct frequent security assessments and ongoing penetration testing. 

We look forward to hearing from Senator Wyden directly about this request and working with the DoD and NSA to provide more details about our system. In the meantime, we encourage Senator Wyden and his team to first learn more about how we’ve built our system (HERE), which allows any voter to verify that the vote was counted, and secondly to learn more about how the Voatz system has been built for end-to-end verifiability (HERE).

Voatz Collaborates with WGBH’s National Center for Accessible Media to Make Mobile Voting Accessible for Voters with Disabilities and Citizens Residing Overseas

BOSTON, Nov. 04, 2019 — Voatz, a Boston-based elections company focused on secure mobile voting , announced a collaboration with the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH Educational Foundation (NCAM) to test the accessibility features of the company’s secure mobile voting application.

The mobile voting application, available on compatible Android and iOS devices, allows deployed military personnel and overseas U.S. citizens, as well as people with disabilities, to conveniently and securely vote in elections with their smartphones from virtually anywhere in the world.

 

“We’re proud to collaborate with NCAM to help make sure people with disabilities have accessible means to raise their voices in elections,” said Nimit Sawhney, Voatz co-founder and CEO.  “For too long, the needs of citizens with disabilities have largely been ignored in the perceived conflict between security and convenience. Voatz believes that citizens with disabilities deserve to take advantage of the advanced accessibility features available on modern smartphones. Democracy is at its best when all citizens can vote securely without limitation—physical or geographic.”

 

Secured with blockchain technology and rigorously tested for ease of use, the app allows eligible users the option to forgo inaccessible paper  ballots currently submitted by postal mail, facsimile or email. The Voatz app provides voters with an auditable confirmation and produces a fully marked paper ballot for tabulation, thereby providing unprecedented levels of end-to-end auditability and verifiability.

 

In our tests, we have found Voatz’s platform to be highly accessible,” said Donna A. Danielewski, Ph.D., Senior Director of NCAM. “It allows individuals with disabilities to participate in the democratic voting process in a clear and accessible way. We look forward to continuing to work with Voatz  in testing the platform as they work to bring it to more markets.”

 

About NCAM

For nearly three decades, the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) has been a national leader in making digital media accessible for people with disabilities. The team in NCAM—with more than 150 years of combined experience in accessibility—are pioneers, inventors, and problem-solvers, frequently anticipating and creating solutions for tomorrow’s technology challenges. 

 

About WGBH

WGBH is America’s preeminent public broadcaster and the largest producer of PBS content for TV and the Web, including Frontline, Nova, American Experience, Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, and more than a dozen other prime-time, lifestyle, and children’s series. WGBH also is a major source of digital content and programs for public radio through PRX, including The World and Innovation Hub; a leader in educational multimedia with PBS LearningMedia™, providing the nation’s educators with free, curriculum-based digital content; and a pioneer in services that make media accessible to deaf, hard of hearing, blind and visually impaired audiences. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors, including Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards and Oscars. More info at www.wgbh.org.

 

About Voatz

Voatz is an award-winning mobile elections platform that leverages military-grade technology (including biometrics and a blockchain-based infrastructure) to increase accessibility and security in elections. Voatz has run more than 50 elections with state and local governments, cities, universities, towns, nonprofits, and both major state political parties for convention voting. Last year, Voatz partnered with West Virginia to empower deployed military and overseas citizens to vote, marking the first mobile votes in U.S. history. In 2019 Voatz expanded its pilots to Denver and Utah, both of which held citizen’s public-facing audits, hosted by the National Cybersecurity Center.  Recently, two counties in Oregon have also started to pilot the Voatz platform. All pilots have led to an increased turnout and in the case of Denver, 100% of voters responding to a post-election survey said they preferred this method of voting to any other. Learn more here.