good news re: open source voting in SF!

[Chris Jerdonek]

Hi Code for SF'ers, and Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to follow up on last week's San Francisco Elections Commission meeting and share the good news with you from that day!

Last Wednesday, the Commission unanimously passed its proposed "Open Source Voting Systems" resolution!  Here is a tweet about it from the Commission (please retweet, etc, if you can!):

https://twitter.com/SFElectionsComm/status/667433987040813056

This is great news for elections in SF and across the country.  It's one more key step towards SF building a paper-based open voting system.  An "open voting system" is a voting system consisting of open source software, commercial off-the-shelf hardware (like paper-ballot scanners and tablet computers), and openly licensed supporting materials that any jurisdiction in the country would be able to acquire and use affordably.

I encourage you to take a look at the resolution text if you're a fan of open source.  It has a lot of good material.  You can read the resolution by clicking on the first link at the top of this page:

http://www.sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=1436

The next step is to work with San Francisco's Mayor and Board of Supervisors in early 2016 to initiate the development project starting in the next fiscal year.

Thanks for everyone's continued support and actions as San Francisco leads the way in this important effort!  And feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone you think might be interested.

Best,

--Chris

On Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 6:20 PM, Chris Jerdonek <chris.j...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Code for SF'ers!

Some more exciting activity is happening this week in San Francisco on the topic of open source voting systems, which could help improve elections not just in SF but all across the country.

This Wednesday, November 18 at 6pm in Room 408 of San Francisco City Hall, the SF Elections Commission will be considering a resolution on the topic of open source voting systems.  The text of the resolution can be viewed on the Commission's home page (by clicking the "Packet" link for the meeting):

http://sfgov.org/electionscommission

The proposed resolution asks San Francisco's Mayor and Board of Supervisors to initiate a project to develop and certify an open source voting system for use in San Francisco -- a system which would then be usable anywhere in the country with no licensing costs, etc.  Last December, the Board unanimously expressed support for the idea of moving forward on open source voting.

If you or anyone you know could attend the Commission meeting this week and express support for the resolution, that would be a big help.

And here is an announcement in tweet form:

https://twitter.com/cjerdonek/status/665916672478457856

Thanks a lot, everyone!

Best,

--Chris