US House Democrats adopt over-the-Internet voting for internal votes

[lpetrich]

U.S. House Democrats adopt mobile internet voting for leadership contests | Reuters

U.S. lawmakers used a mobile phone app over the last two weeks to remotely cast votes for the first time, according to technologists and some involved in the process, embracing technology to facilitate an internal party leadership contest."

The development marks a shift in how Congress is adapting to the internet, especially in the middle of a pandemic. Use of the app, called Markup ERVS, had not been publicly disclosed before Friday. (ERVS stands for “Electronic Remote Voting System.”)

The Democratic Reps cast votes over several days for several leadership positions, like heads of committees and assistant speaker.

Earlier this year, the House changed its procedures for voting on legislation by the full chamber. It allowed members, for the first time, to communicate their votes to colleagues in Washington, who then cast those votes for them in person.

Republicans, however, claim that this would create a bad precedent.

While the concept of internet-based mobile phone voting has been discussed in the civic technology industry for several years, cybersecurity experts have generally warned against its widespread deployment due to the possibility of cyberattacks.

As a sign of the app’s security, Redmond said, Markup ERVS, a product of Washington-based government tech startup Markup LLC, was built in partnership with Microsoft Corp.

Markup borrows code from Microsoft’s ElectionGuard technology, said Redmond. That offers “a way of checking election results are accurate, and that votes have not been altered,” Microsoft’s website says.

I like this. It's good that a major party is working with this technology to get experience with it.

 

[Jayjay]

A party using technological aides for its internal decision-making is perfectly ok. If dems mess it up somehow, it's their internal business. At best, it improves the quality of the internal debate and could be a stepping stone for more elaborate and more fair schemes like quadratic voting.

Voting in congress on behalf of other representatives is a whole different matter. That should be reverted when the pandemic is over.