U.S. military members have the right to cast paper ballots on election night.
That's the premise behind a $6.8 million research effort led by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that could change the voting game for troops stationed far from home and even deployed in remote locations. We aim to develop technology that has the potential to
Steve Trout, director of government partnerships at DARPA contractor VotingWorks, puts his vision more bluntly: “My goal is to get the vote from the International Space Station.”
VotingWorks and DARPA held a preview demonstration on February 7 attended by military representatives and state government officials to show what a “first class” military voting experience is like.
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The problem, as outlined by the presenter, was clear. For soldiers and their families, voting looks and feels very different than it does for most Americans. The absentee ballots they mail may be different from those used in state and local voting districts and are not counted until an audit period long after all projected winners have been announced. yeah.
And those differences in experience and perception are directly reflected in voting participation. According to information provided by VotingWorks, the average turnout for military voters is 47%, while the average turnout for civilians is 74%. The polling data presented highlights the role that voting issues play in nonparticipation.
About 54% of military personnel surveyed said they wanted to vote but did not find it difficult to request an absentee ballot, and another 43% said they did not receive a ballot at all. Other reasons for not voting included the voting process being too complicated, problems with the mailing system, and problems accessing state election websites.
The technology proposal from VotingWorks is compact enough to fit in a large suitcase, and it prints the exact same paper ballots used for military local elections and also generates a label for mailing those ballots. A one-stop voting station will change the game. We'll keep hammering into the right polling places until election night.
The end-to-end encrypted electronic version of the ballot is immediately sent to the local election center for counting, and the paper version is then mailed, allowing for a hard copy within the 3-4 week audit period. It can be verified. After the election.
In this scenario, the entire process would be enabled through the Military Common Access Card (CAC) to verify identity, thereby avoiding the most difficult issues standing in the way of large-scale electronic voting.
VotingWorks leaders are quick to emphasize that they are not trying to create an Internet-based voting system. They say it also hasn't addressed the problem of civilian absentee voting.
“We're not trying to use military voting as a springboard for widespread Internet voting,” said VotingWorks executive director Ben Adida. “There are aspects of our design that only work in the military, and he's 100% OK with that.”
Although the effort is still in the research phase, company leaders said they would like to present a working prototype and open source design code to DARPA at the end of the year so that “anyone can pick it up and start from there.” '' Adida said. Plans are not yet final, but a limited-scope pilot program could be rolled out in 2025 to test the technology's usefulness.
Dan Wallach, a program manager in DARPA's Office of Innovation, said there will be more opportunities for trials and experiments in 2025, after the 2024 presidential election cycle.
“You can't develop anything new in a high-stakes election with high turnout,” he says. “When you vote dog catcher, it’s time to try something new.”
The innovation behind the current proposal is a dual-track system in which voting stations consisting of terminals and printers for ballots and mailing labels are distributed throughout military bases and deployment environments.
After securely identifying military voters through their CAC cards, stations issue paper ballots that can be filled out and mailed using a label. Ballots are also scanned electronically, so encrypted votes are instantly and securely sent to polling stations and counted with local voters' votes.
Military voters' paper ballots arrive after the election, but can take up to four weeks after the election to complete in time to be included in the ballot audit that verifies election results.
For a voting station to function successfully, it must be sufficiently secure that theft or break-in of the voting station cannot compromise ballots or voter data, and that it must be able to function with minimal internet connectivity, but requires electronic submission. When voting, stations must be able to print the appropriate local ballots and mailing labels for military voters even when offline. It's all in the design specifications, Adida said.
“We're going to get by sporadically, with minimal internet and minimal cell phone service,” Adida said. “Maybe one base doesn't have an Internet connection, but you might be able to write it to a USB stick and have it shipped to a base that has Internet.”
U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chairwoman Christy McCormick expressed skepticism that the system would work as advertised.
“During my time in Iraq, I was tasked with reporting election results to the Department of Defense as part of my job, and I couldn't even use my CAC card,” she said. “So the big hurdle in these countries, especially in combat zones, is that there's nowhere to put that machine.”
McCormick, who was stationed in Iraq from 2009 to 2010 as an elections expert for the Justice Department, told Military Times after the presentation that he was excited about the new project, but that it would be difficult for federal agencies and the Pentagon to do extensive research on the new project. He said he was aware of the cooperation. This will be necessary for such a proposal to be successful.
“It’s always worth a try,” she said. “And I hope they resolve those issues and we can enfranchise more of our overseas population.”
DARPA's Wallach spoke of a combination of new, mature technology and narrow-scope efforts.
“Over the past several decades, this program has done a lot of research on electronic voting and security,” Wallach said, noting that the relatively new post-election risk-limiting audit process and advances in encryption are all making it more practical. military voting solution.
“There are a lot of things that are very recent, and putting them together is new,” he said.
Hope Hodge Seck is an award-winning investigative and corporate reporter covering the U.S. military and national defense. A former editor-in-chief of Military.com, her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Politico Magazine, USA Today, and Popular Mechanics.
