Seattle Is the First Area in U.S. Where Residents Can Vote Via Smartphones

January 22nd, 2020

Here are a few words from the Bradley Tusk Wikipedia page:

“Campaign manager for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s successful 2009 re-election bid, as Deputy Governor of Illinois.”

“Communications Director for US Senator Chuck Schumer.”

“The firm develops and runs large-scale, multi-jurisdictional campaigns for companies, including Comcast, Google, Walmart, AT&T, Pepsi, and institutions including Stanford University, the Rockefeller Foundation and Texas A&M, and individuals including Michael Bloomberg and George Lucas.”

“Tusk then joined U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer as Communications Director from 2000-2002, handling communications, strategy and policy for the Senator, most notably in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks on New York City.”

“After serving as Deputy Governor, Tusk served as Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers, where he created the lottery monetization group and headed all of its efforts regarding U.S. based lotteries.”

That’s what we find after spending two minutes on Wikipedia. The mind boggles at what we might find if we spent a half hour off the reservation…

And in other news, Low-Income “Obama Phones” Shipping With Unremovable Malware.

Via: The Verge:

King County, where Seattle is located, announced on Wednesday that it’s implementing smartphone voting for an upcoming board of supervisors election.

King County’s 1.2 million residents can use their cellphones to vote in the election, which begins on January 22nd and continues until 8PM PT on February 11th.

The program is a collaboration between King County Elections; the county’s conservation district; mobile-voting nonprofit Tusk Philanthropies; the National Cybersecurity Center; and Democracy Live, a technology firm that develops electronic balloting.

“It will be easier than ever for voters to access their Conservation District ballot and cast their vote,” said Julie Wise, King County director of elections, in a statement. “Here at King County Elections, we are always looking for ways to improve access and engage our voters and this election could be a key step in moving toward electronic access and return for voters across the region.”

In an interview with NPR, Bradley Tusk, CEO and Founder of Tusk Philanthropies, emphasized the positive impact the technology could have on voter turnout. Per NPR, King County’s board of supervisors election has seen less than 1 percent of eligible voters turn out in past years.

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