At their meeting on August 26th, the City Council of Chandler Arizona voted unanimously to award a contract to Voatz for the City’s first Mobile Voting Pilot Program, scheduled to be held this November. Voatz is honored to be selected to facilitate this program in Chandler, which has previously been recognized as a community of innovation. We commend the City of Chandler, especially Vice Mayor Stewart who began spearheading this effort in 2019, for their willingness to embrace the role of emerging technologies in securing the future of elections.
Chandler’s mobile voting pilot is scheduled to last three weeks beginning on Tuesday, November 9th, and will come on the tail end of the City’s bond election earlier in the month. Though votes cast during the pilot will not be used to determine the outcome of the bond election, the pilot ballot will ask the same questions to mimic a ballot with which voters are already familiar. Additionally, the City plans to include some new questions on the pilot ballot which will gauge the public’s interest in alternative voting methods. Chandler teens aged 13-18 will also be allowed to participate in the pilot so that the results capture the sentiments of the next generation of voters.
The results of the election will be presented to the Chandler City Council in December, along with an evaluation of the success of the pilot. According to City documents, “one of the key goals of the pilot program is to evaluate the effectiveness of the auditing capability by encouraging citizens to participate in the process directly using the convenience and security of their smart devices.”