Mobile is the Future of Voting – Nimit Sawhney, CEO, Voatz

8:10 What is Voatz doing at this time?

In 2020, we did 23 elections - 21 in the US, 1 in Brazil and 1 in Venezuala, millions of voters voting at the same time - a smartphone app being used for the election in Utah and Oregon

10:32 What’s the origin of Voatz?

Him and his brother were at a hackathon at SXSW in 2014 and accidentally created Voatz

13:10 Is this his first startup and do you consider yourself a “founder”?

This is his first startup but worked for another startup after grad school. It became clear that his work style was to be a founder. He has found he meandered into it. He has found as a “founder” he can’t really go back to traditional employment. 

16:15 Access is a bigger issue? 

Background in cybersecurity, technologies that haven’t been used in the election space, a clear connection was made

In the past few years, he’s noticed a large portion of voters are not voting because it is difficult to vote in the traditional way

It is possible to do things in a safe enough way, we can survive with threats

19:45 Where are we in the world of mobile voting? What are the challenges? 

Still at an early stage - for large scale deployment

System is being used in 5 states at government level and in 6 states at the party level

International progress looks better in the short-term - Estonia, Canada, Philippines, Brazil, etc.

There are headwinds from the legislative side, and they have lost a bit of trust from the legislative institution, how do you build trust from the ground up?

It’s not enough to have the best technology out there, but people have to have an emotional connection and trust it

They started with demographics that are traditionally unable to vote in person - i.e. Military stationed overseas, people with disabilities, and due to COVID - people who were impacted by COVID

24:00 What are the statistics of people who are willing to vote by phone?

Research is early, very little data

In 2018 - 3-5%, but in past 16 months, turnout increased by 250% and others by 8 times

Anecdotally, they expect a double digit improvement

Bigger impact could be seen in local elections

27:22 Hot buttons with voters, legislators and others?

Everything resides with the voters

There’s been an immense loss of trust

It was implied that paper ballot voting that nothing bad happens

People are looking for a way to revalidate that trust

With this way of voting, they can verify their vote was received and tabulated

This may hold the key for restoring trust

31:45 How does Voatz use the blockchain?

The blockchain plays a specific role

Not a magic pill

Every oval marked on your ballot gets recorded as a unique transaction

Tamper-resistant

No single point of failure

Gives voters a receipt is used to audit their ballot start-to-finish

Governance layer - for the first time governments are giving up a part of the process, the governments are not running all the nodes - it’s controlled by a cloud infrastructure, ordinary citizens, both political parties, non-profits, NGOs, etc. 

It brings transparency and builds that trust

Every voter is essentially an auditor

This makes the entire process more equitable and transparent

36:40 What’s going on on the legislative and political front? Is the new administration more friendly to this type of technology?

Very interesting what’s happening on the state level and the federal level

After the recent election, there has been a lot of activity 

Local legislators putting out bills that are bipartisan, and others that seek to improve accessibility

At the national level there are some very high profile bills, and are a reaction to what’s going on in some states after the recent election

There is an attempt to ban all electronic forms of voting

For this to happen in the most technologically advanced country in the world, it is very concerning

41:45 How is the technology community rallying around this issue?

There is quite a bit of support, but not in a way that brings about legislative change

Controlled by a section of the educational community

Some of the energy needs to be channeled into appropriate legislative action

43:05 Is access to voting comparable to access to healthcare? Is it a human right?

He would agree, and the United Nations also includes democratic voting in their SDGs 

44:05 What is the role of the federal government for this? What is the ideal way to be engaged with the new administration?

Federal government can play a positive role

They can secure the infrastructure and firepower the control

If they wanted to use their weight and make sure that we have an accessible online voting system

The technology and resources exist and the federal government could play a critical role in this

There’s a lot of emphasis in terms of promoting startups and innovation adn this needs to extend to the election space

Remove the anti-technology clauses from the bills

There’s a need for resilience in the system

47:20 How is Voatz good for the investor?

From an investor perspective, this is a perfect double bottom line scenario

It requires patience as this is a long haul, but it’s a unique space - not much innovation in the past 2-3 decades

For the first time an election system has a touchpoint with a voter

This is now a tool for citizens to engage on a regular basis and the government to engage the voters on a regular basis

49:55 Do investors look at Voatz the same as another blockchain startup? 

No. There’s not enough metrics

A lot of investors are logical in their analyses and if there’s no data there’s nothing to analyze

Nobody’s ever done it before

It is nontraditional thinking

Nimit Sawhney

Robert Dowling

Hudson Cutler

Voatz

Carnegie Mellon University

Harvard Business School