As Trump Attacks Voting, Mobile Ballots Offer a Solution
The Problem: National Attacks on Mail and In-person voting
Nearly one-third of Americans use mail to cast their ballots
Trump issued an Executive Order on March 31st that would put major roadblocks for mail-in voting that does three things:
Directs DHS to build state-by-state federal voter-eligibility lists from federal databases.
Directs DOJ to prioritize prosecuting election officials who issue ballots to anyone the federal government deems ineligible.
Requires USPS to deliver ballots only to voters on pre-approved lists — with deadlines earlier than most states currently use.
Voters and election officials are experiencing whiplash. In under two weeks: a federal judge blocked the EO → the Supreme Court's conservative majority lifted that block on procedural grounds, without ruling on the order's underlying legality → the judge reimposed a restraining order after finding USPS kept building its system in defiance of her original injunction. Ballots were already going out in North Carolina throughout.
Voters and election officials don't know, week to week, what rules will govern whether a ballot counts.
A whistleblower statement says USPS kept implementing the EO's rules for the midterms despite ongoing litigation, including:
“Zero percent” batch rejection — one scanning error in a batch of thousands of envelopes can void every ballot in it, even fully valid ones.
New barcode requirements — an added print step that can misfire (wrong code, printing error, damage) before a ballot is even opened.
In-Person
DOJ announced in August it will deploy roughly 1,000 “election monitors” to polling sites nationwide raising real intimidation concerns at the polls.
Mobile Voting Addresses these Issues
It's time to get innovative and explore an additional method of voting, one that is reliable and secure, in many ways more so than our traditional forms. That option is secure smartphone voting.
No dependence on USPS solvency, staffing, or transit schedules — a mobile ballot has no delivery timeline to disrupt.
No need to appear in person- addressing accessibility issues that working families, voters with disabilities, military personnel and others have always faced.
Mobile voting wouldn’t replace any other forms of voting, it would be an additional option. And local governments should begin by offering it in city and local elections.
32 states already allow electronic ballot returns for specific groups —typically military or overseas voters, or voters with disabilities- through email, fax or online portal.
Smartphone voting has been piloted in 11 states—red and blue—including AL, CO, MT, NC, OR, UT, SC, VA, WA, WV.
The results are significant: turnout doubled among military and overseas voters in Denver, tripled in a special district in Seattle, and in South Carolina ballot returns increased from 45%. In addition, the streamlined process saved dozens of hours of manual work for election staff.
There is gold-standard, free-of-charge technology available that can provide voters and election officials more transparency and confidence.
An important feature is multifactor authentication, which ensures the voter is who they say they are.
The technology is end-to-end verifiable, meaning that the voters themselves can track that their vote was cast, recorded and counted correctly. You don’t have to take the government’s word that your vote went through and was accurately tabulated.
Conclusion: With traditional voting in crisis, we need to start innovating to ensure the integrity of our election system. Mobile voting should be offered in local elections as a starting point.