Elections are run differently across the world, and each jurisdiction usually has a governing board that decides which processes and technologies will facilitate voting.
Things are no different in the U.S., where election decisions are made at the state level. Most often, the Secretaries of State, State Election Directors, and other government officials hire one of a number of companies that specialize in election technologies and services—everything from paper ballots and tabulation machines, to personnel support services. The major companies offering these services have been around for at least a decade.
Voatz is one of the youngest companies to enter into the field. While Voatz leverages some of the latest technologies across its voting platform, it also produces a paper ballot so that it can integrate seamlessly into the existing infrastructure. This process alleviates the burden on election officials who otherwise have to manually process mailed-in absentee ballots (opening the envelope, flattening the ballot, scanning), and e-mailed absentee ballots from military and overseas citizens (opening the email, hand-copying selections onto a tabulatable paper ballot, scanning).
If a voter lives in a jurisdiction offering Voatz, the process is as follows:
- REQUEST — A voter requests to vote absentee from their jurisdiction and indicates they’d like to “vote mobile” (which often requires filling out an “absentee voter request form”).
- VERIFY — The voter receives an invitation to download the Voatz app and verify their identity (usually by scanning a government-issued photo ID).
- VOTE — Once verified, the voter votes on the smartphone and a paper ballot is produced at the jurisdiction for tabulation. The voter also receives a ballot receipt confirming their selections. Both documents are digitally signed with an anonymous ID to preserve privacy.
- CONFIRM — After the election, an audit confirms that the tabulation (paper ballots) match voter intent (ballot receipts).