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Snapchat introduces voting resources to boost youth turnout
Snapchat wants to use its influence with young people to help drive higher turnout in the upcoming elections. To do that, the company is introducing a new set of educational tools meant to help users prepare to vote. The new features include voter registration tools and informational guides about the upcoming elections.
Study finds security holes in online voting for New Jersey and West Virginia (updated)
Researchers say they've found privacy and security issues in OmniBallot's online voting platform.
Netanyahu's party left Israel's entire voter registry exposed
Political parties have left voter records exposed before, but seldom on this scale. Haaretz has learned that Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, uploaded Israel's entire voter registry to the Elector voting management app, which had glaring security issues that effectively left the data wide open for days. You could even access the info through a web browser without tools or expertise. The collection included personal details (such as addresses and ID numbers) for nearly 6.5 million Israelis, including Netanyahu and other top politicians.
Engadget Podcast: How tech (and humans) failed the Iowa caucus
The logistical and technical debacle of the Iowa Democratic Caucus is exactly why we're not hopeful about online voting in America. This week on the Engadget Podcast, Devindra and Cherlynn chat about what exactly went wrong for Iowa's Democratic Party. The mysterious app from an unknown progressive tech firm was mostly to blame, but it was also helped by some good old fashioned human error. Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News! Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts Stitcher Google Play Music Links Iowa Democrats say sloppy code led to app failure Iowa Caucus results delayed because of app issues LG pulls out of Mobile World Congress over Coronavirus Spotify buys The Ringer Credits Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
West Virginia will allow people with disabilities to vote by smartphone
More governments in the US are offering the option to vote by smartphone. West Virginia's governor is poised to sign a bill requiring that all counties offer people with disabilities a way to vote online, just in time for the 2020 presidential election. It'd be the first state to provide the option. While the details have yet to be established, Secretary of State Mac Warner said it would most likely offer the mobile app Voatz, just like it did when it allowed online voting for overseas troops.
Twitter will let you report posts aimed at suppressing voters
Twitter is rolling out another tool meant to protect the 2020 US election. Today, it announced that during "key moments" of the election users will be able to report misleading information about how to participate in an election or other civic event. Users will be able to specify whether the misinformation contains false info about how or where to vote or register, if it intends to suppress or intimidate people from voting or if someone is misrepresenting their affiliation with a candidate, party, etc.
Seattle-area election will let residents vote by smartphone
Claims that Americans could vote by phone have usually been hoaxes, but Seattle-area residents will get to try the real thing before long. NPR has learned that a King County board of supervisors election on February 11th will let all eligible voters cast their ballots by smartphone -- the first time this has been an option in the country. You'll have the mobile voting option from today (January 22nd) through to the actual election day.
Microsoft makes its open-source secure voting software available to all
Back in May Microsoft announced its plans to make the business of voting more secure, verifiable and efficient. Enter ElectionGuard, which, after various demonstrations over the summer, is now available on GitHub, open to use by any tech supplier looking for what Microsoft calls a more trustworthy voting system.
Microsoft demos its bid at creating 'secure' voting systems
Microsoft is keen to show that its election security system is more than just a theoretical exercise. The company has demonstrated the first voting system to use its ElectionGuard tech, promising a vote that's both easier and more trustworthy. The example hardware is pieced together from off-the-shelf parts and includes a Surface tablet (in a fiddle-free kiosk mode), an everyday printer and an Xbox Adaptive Controller to make voting more accessible. That's relatively unique in itself by proving that you can use regular components, but the software is ultimately what glues it all together.
Major voting machine maker backs away from paperless models
Voting machine security is still a sore point, but at least some vendors are starting to change their tune. ES&S chief Tom Burt has declared that his company will "no longer sell" paperless voting machines as the "primary" voting device for a given jurisdiction. It's just too hard to conduct a "meaningful" audit of election results without a physical record, Burt said. He went so far as to ask the US Congress to mandate a paper record for all voters.
Software firm may have exposed North Carolina to election hackers in 2016
Voting system security is problematic enough, but one company might have unintentionally laid out a welcome mat for hackers. Politico claims VR Systems, a voting software firm targeted by Russians, took a gigantic risk in 2016 by using remote access software to connect to a computer in North Carolina and troubleshoot a voter list management tool in the last two days before the election. As the tool downloaded the Durham County voter list straight from the state's Board of Elections, intruders could have altered local (and potentially state-level) records to prevent people from voting in key precincts.
Microsoft wants to secure elections and political campaigns
Get the jokes about voting booths crashing left and right out of your system: Microsoft announced today that it's taking a few steps towards election security. First up is ElectionGuard, an open source software development kit that will offer public verifiability and other security measures for elections. Since it's open, Microsoft is hoping developers will integrate it into existing voting systems -- it's not trying to replace things that already work. Additionally, Microsoft says it'll offer "guidance and tools to build more accessible voting systems," though it didn't elaborate on specifics. Developers will be able to get their hands on ElectionGuard's SDK when it hits GitHub in the summer.
Twitter makes it easier to report election tweets that deliberately mislead people
With a number of high profile elections taking place around the world in the coming months, social media platforms are gearing themselves up for the inevitable onslaught of fake news and misleading information. Twitter has announced that it's doubling down on its efforts in this area with a new feature that will let users report this kind of problematic content directly.
Nearly half of the votes in Estonia's election were cast online
While many parts of the world are still struggling with voting machines, Estonia appears to be embracing online voting with gusto. In the country's recently finished parliamentary elections, nearly 44 percent of votes were cast through the i-voting system -- a major milestone when just 16 percent of Estonians voted online in 2009's EU elections. The result isn't a total surprise when the nation has spent most of the past two decades digitizing government functions, but it's still no mean feat given everything involved.
How Brian Kemp hacked Georgia’s election
"[Brian] Kemp on Thursday said he had resigned as Georgia's secretary of state," reported Reuters yesterday. No one watching Kemp's malfeasant, multi-year election security trash fire could understand why that sentence didn't stop at "resigned."
Google can tell you how and where to vote on Election Day
You can add Google to the list of tech companies nudging you to get out to the polls today. The big G's search engine is the go-to source for our most pressing, and prosaic, questions. And once again, it can act as your Election Day info hub, built around your search queries.
Recommended Reading: Midterms have already been hacked
The midterms are already hacked. You just don't know it yet. Benjamin Wofford, Vox The concerns regarding voting processes in the US are nothing new, especially when it comes to vulnerabilities. Vox is the latest to take an in-depth look at the troubling issues surrounding voting systems ahead of the midterms on November 6th. And it's (still) not pretty, even after months of warnings from all sides.
Lime offers free bike and scooter rentals on Election Day
If you're looking for a way to the polls this Election Day, you can snag a free ride via bike or scooter from Lime. The company is offering free trips on its fleet of shared bicycles, e-bikes, and occasionally abused electric scooters on Tuesday, November 6th.
Uber offers $10 off Election Day rides to polling stations
Uber is one of several tech companies trying to make sure you're doing your civic duty by getting out to the polls on November 6th, as it's offering a $10 discount on rides to polling stations. You'll need the latest version of the app to get the promo code on Election Day, and you can use it for a ride on the most affordable Uber option in your locale: Express Pool, Pool or UberX, in that order. You'll also need to use the polling place locator in the app.
Snapchat helped register 418,000 US voters in two weeks
It's easy to be cynical when you hear about voter registration campaigns from social networks. How many people really sign up because of a digital nudge? Quite a few, apparently. Snap told the New York Times that its Snapchat campaign had helped 418,000 people register in the space of a two-week period, many of them in hotly contested states like Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas. The initiative had combined a registration button on users' profiles with snap videos asking them to register.
