Online petitioning for Boulder, CO I&R passes 71-29%!

[Evan Ravitz]

By a fluke, I was appointed to the city of Boulder's Campaign Finance and Elections working group. I got us to unanimously recommend, and City Council to unanimously vote, to put it on the ballot. Voters passed it 71 to 29%.

The City is starting to make available in June something immediately available commercially, call eSign, which has been used for a year or so in Denver and DC. 

http://303software.com/eSign

Later this year they're going to appoint a technical working group to evaluate true online petitioning, which is far better as it doesn't require circulators and is far more convenient, cheap and secure. We envision simply adding petition capability to the existing state voter registration website, which like 37 other states uses driver's license or other ID instead of a signature. GovoteColorado.com

if you live in a state with initiatives or veto referendum AND voter registration websites, you might try to get your state legislature to pass this, or your city if they have home rule. They are talking about it now at the state capitol in Denver! Otherwise you could pass a ballot Initiative for it.

This will solve most of the problems involving money with ballot initiatives, putting them within the reach of far more people.

Here's our working group's editorial for it, which I wrote most of:

http://www.dailycamera.com/guest-opinions/ci_32187489/campaign-finance-elections-working-group-issue-2g-brings

Evan

Evan Ravitz, guide, photographer, writer, editor. Ex-not-so-tight-rope artist. Working for direct democracy since 1988. The unlikely takes longer...
http://EvanRavitz.com
(720)403-5594

[josiah moss]

This is great news!  Congrats.  This is a good step towards online voting.

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[Evan Ravitz]

Thanks Josiah. But most Security Experts say voting itself should not be online because it is anonymous and therefore not verifiable. A petition on the other hand has your name and address on it, so it's easy to verify, like financial transactions that have been online for decades.

Maybe if the technical underpinnings of the internet were changed, it would be possible. Maybe the blockchain makes it possible, but on the other hand Bitcoins etc are regularly stolen somehow.

Evan Ravitz, guide, photographer, writer, editor. Ex-not-so-tight-rope artist. Working for direct democracy since 1988. The unlikely takes longer...
http://EvanRavitz.com
(720)403-5594

[josiah moss]

I believe it can be done mainly because we need it for ncid.us.  Your concern about anonymity online can be solved by what you mentioned about blockchain, I’ve invested in crypto for years now and gotten bitcoin stolen but it wasn’t because of blockchain, blockchain tracks the transaction and verifies the unit of crypto within the available currency.  If you think about it with voting we can take the number of registered voters as the set amount just like bitcoin has a set amount in circulation that determines the value.  A person can put in all their registration information to verify themselves as well as verifiable documents like photo ID, create user/password, two factor authentication, and military encryption for the web server, and back up servers, then blockchain verifies and tracks the vote with IP address.  The voter once voted gets a receipt of the vote with a Q code that can be printed out and possibly scanned at local polling place for even more security.  


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