The
foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S.
electronic voting firm has just announced its technology will be
deployed at more jurisdictions ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.
A SCYTL company
news release
boasted that its “electronic pollbook solution recently achieved a
significant milestone by eclipsing the 100th implementation in the
United States.”
“This number continues to grow with many jurisdictions planning to
implement electronic pollbook technology ahead of the 2014 election
cycle,” continued the release.
The electronic pollbook reportedly allows U.S. election officials and
poll workers to manage the electoral roll on Election Day in an
efficient and convenient manner.
SCYTL’s electronic pollbook solution will be utilized in small and
large election jurisdictions throughout the nation, including in
Washington, D.C.; Galveston County, Texas, along with 50 other Texas
counties; Kane County, Ill.; and the city of Peoria, Ill.
“We are very excited that our superior platform and unique solution
have earned the trust of more than 100 election jurisdictions who have
successfully utilized our electronic pollbook in major elections,” said
Marc Fratello, CEO of SOE Software.
“We also look forward to expanding our offering to other election jurisdictions across the United States,” added Fratello.
In January 2012, SCYTL, based in Barcelona, acquired 100 percent of
SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management
solutions in the United States. The sale garnered national attention
after it was spotlighted by the popular Drudge Report.
Soros ties
Last week,
WND exposed
how SCYTL recently acquired the software division of a non-profit
election organization tied to George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
SCYTL said it is purchasing the software division of Gov2U, described
as a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting the
use of technology in the fields of governance and democracy.
A SCYTL press release says:
“Gov2U created its software division in 2004 and, since then, it has
developed a wide array of innovative award-winning eDemocracy solutions
that have been implemented in multiple countries across Europe, Africa
and America at the local, regional and federal government levels.”
The Spain-based company says the “main purpose of these tools is to
engage citizens in participatory processes through the use of online and
offline platforms, bringing more transparency and legitimacy to
decision-making processes.”
Gov4U is currently partnered with Soros’ Open Society to support and develop a group called the
Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.
The group runs a website, OpeningParliament.org, which says it is a
forum “intended to help connect the world’s civic organizations engaged
in monitoring, supporting and opening up their countries’ parliaments
and legislative institutions.”
Gov4U, meanwhile, has eight partners of its own listed on its website, including the Soros-funded and partnered
National Democratic Institute, or NDI.
Aside from receiving financial support for Soros, NDI has co-hosted
scores of events along with Soros’ Open Society. The two groups work
closely together.
NDI and the Open Society, for example, worked together to push for electoral and legislative reform in Romania.
NDI boasts that with Open Society Institute funds it conducted a
political leadership training series for Romanian activists to “bring tangible improvements to their communities.”
NDI describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental
organization working to establish and strengthen political and civic
organizations, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation,
openness and accountability in government.
NDI previously stated it was founded to draw on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party.
WND found that NDI is also
listed as the only U.S.-associated organization of Socialists International, the world’s largest socialist umbrella group.
NDI was originally created by the federally funded National Endowment
for Democracy, or NED, which itself founded joint NDI projects with the
Open Society. Another NDI financial backer is the United States Agency
for International Development, USAID.
U.S. elections, national security concerns
With the purchase of SOE Software, SCYTL increased its involvement in
the U.S. elections process. SOE Software boasts a strong U.S. presence,
providing results in more than 900 jurisdictions.
In 2009, SCYTL formally registered with the U.S. Election Assistance
Commission as the first Internet voting manufacturer in the U.S. under
the EAC Voting System Testing and Certification Program.
Also that year, SCYTL entered into an agreement with another firm, Hart InterCivic, to jointly market its pollbook.
SCYTL’s ePollBook already has replaced the paper precinct roster in Washington, D.C.
In the 2012 presidential election, SCYTL was contracted by the states
of New York, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Alaska, Puerto Rico and
Mississippi to provide the overseas ballots.
During the midterm elections in November 2010, SCYTL successfully
carried out electoral modernization projects in 14 states. The
company boasted
that a “great variety” of SCYTL’s technologies were involved in the
projects, including an online platform for the delivery of blank ballots
to overseas voters, an Internet voting platform and epollbook software
to manage the electoral roll at the polling stations.
The states that used SCYTL’s technologies during the midterms were
New York, Texas, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Missouri,
Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia and
Washington, D.C.
Just prior to the midterm’s however, the new electronic voting system in Washington, D.C., was hacked.
As a program security trial, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics
reportedly encouraged outside parties to find flaws in its new online
balloting system. A group of University of Michigan students
then hacked into the site and commanded it to play the school’s fight song upon casting a vote.
It’s not the first time SCYTL’s systems have been called into question.
Voter Action, an advocacy group that seeks elections integrity in the U.S.,
sent a lengthy complaint
to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 charging the
integration of SCYTL systems “raises national security concerns.”
“Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security
interests of the United States, either directly or through other
organizations,” Voter Action charged.
The document notes that SCYTL was founded in 2001 as a spinoff from a
research group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, which was
partially funded by the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and
Technology.
Along with Barcelona, SCYTL has offices in Washington, D.C., Singapore, Bratislava and Athens.
Project Vote noted that in 2008, the Florida Department of State
commissioned a review of SCYTL’s remote voting software and concluded in
part that:
- The system is vulnerable to attack from insiders.
- In a worst case scenario, the software could lead to 1) voters being
unable to cast votes; 2) an election that does not accurately reflect
the will of the voters; and 3) possible disclosure of confidential
information, such as the votes cast by individual voters.
- The system may be subject to attacks that could compromise the integrity of the votes cast.
Voting through Google, Apple?
As
WND reported
in May 2012 the company announced the successful implementation of
technology that allows ballots to be cast using Google and Apple smart
phones and tablet computers.
SCYTL unveiled a platform that it says encrypts each individual
ballot on a voter’s Google or Apple mobile device before the ballot is
then transmitted to an electronic voting system.
Using this technology, “Scytl is now able to guarantee end-to-end
security – from the voter to the final tally – not only for
computer-based online voting but also for mobile voting,” stated a press
release by the company.
“By leveraging its pioneering security technology with Google and
Apple’s mobile device platforms, Scytl has become the premier election
technology provider to offer an online voting system that guarantees the
highest standards in terms of both voter privacy and ballot integrity
both on personal computers and mobile devices,” said Gabriel Dos Santos,
Scytl’s vice president of software engineering.
The U.S. currently does not utilize voting platforms using mobile
devices. SCYTL sees such methods as the future of electronic voting.