Apart from security concerns surrounding that process, these state parties have to satisfy the DNC's 2020 requirement for a paper trail for its "virtual caucus" participants.
The virtual voters may end up with an emailed receipt after confirming their choices on their phone. Email is how these voters would receive log-in and password information to vote remotely. In contrast, voters in precinct caucuses will turn in a paper presidential preference card listing their first and final choices. (The caucuses involve ranking the presidential preferences.) Any recount would combine these varying evidence trails.
Securing all of these steps in a statewide caucusing process is formidable, several RBC members said, including one who said that the DNC recently formed an internal technical advisory committee because it was "a bit out of its depth and trying to catch up."
James Roosevelt III, the RBC co-chair, was careful in describing the ongoing regulatory review after the July 30 Rules Committee meeting.
"The primary topic this morning [at a closed breakfast] was to educate the committee on cybersecurity," he said, adding that the discussion will continue at its next meeting in San Francisco later this month. "I think a bunch of these things may well come back to the [open] committee in that meeting."
Cybersecurity is not the only concern. There are questions surrounding the staffing, training and support levels needed for deploying a new voting system. For example, Nevada wants 1,700-plus precinct caucus chairs to use an app to announce the results of that precinct's virtual vote, and to report the results from the voting in the room.
"I would say that's still an open question, not so much in principle [using an app] but in demonstrating that the state party will have the resources and the bodies to carry that out," Roosevelt said.
The DNC Rules Committee has granted conditional approval to Iowa and Nevada for their 2020 plans. Both states are responding to new DNC rules issued last December that require its caucus states to offer a remote voting option to increase participation. But the RBC panel has not yet granted final approval.
Unlike Nevada, Iowa will not be using an app for all of its local precinct caucus chairs, but instead will create four new regional precincts for its virtual voters. Those results will be awarded 10 percent of the night's allocation of delegates to the process's next stage.
When asked if the Rules Committee might instruct Nevada to follow Iowa's template, which appears simpler, Roosevelt said, "I think that's possible, but I don't know."
North Carolina and Other 2020 Acquisitions
At first glance, the drama unfolding at North Carolina's Board of Elections would appear to have little in common with the DNC's effort to deploy a new remote voting option in caucus states. Yet both are wrestling with one core issue: what constitutes a paper record when voters use computers (or a phone), but not a pen and paper, to mark the ballot.
The answer to this question of what is the best record showing voter intent -- unmediated man-made ink marks or a computer-clarified summary -- will come into play when results are close enough to trigger recounts. Whether the public will accept the outcome of that process, will, in part, depend on the vote count evidence presented.
Steeping back, across the country, many states and counties are now acquiring new voting systems for the first time in a dozen or more years. These voting systems may end up being used for a decade or more. That's why precedents being set are so important.
For example, the Alaska Democratic Party wants to use a smartphone system as a ballot-marking device for its 2020 caucuses. At least one RBC member doesn't want the DNC to endorse that system, because he opposes internet voting. That system is additionally controversial because it uses technologies that have not yet been federally certified.
In another controversial example, Georgia just announced it would acquire and deploy a new statewide system of ballot-marking devices consisting of "30,000 voting machines, 30,000 printers, 3,500 scanners and 8,000 electronic voter registration terminals," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said, "in time for the March 24 presidential preference primary."
The virtual voters may end up with an emailed receipt after confirming their choices on their phone. Email is how these voters would receive log-in and password information to vote remotely. In contrast, voters in precinct caucuses will turn in a paper presidential preference card listing their first and final choices. (The caucuses involve ranking the presidential preferences.) Any recount would combine these varying evidence trails.
Securing all of these steps in a statewide caucusing process is formidable, several RBC members said, including one who said that the DNC recently formed an internal technical advisory committee because it was "a bit out of its depth and trying to catch up."
James Roosevelt III, the RBC co-chair, was careful in describing the ongoing regulatory review after the July 30 Rules Committee meeting.
Cybersecurity is not the only concern. There are questions surrounding the staffing, training and support levels needed for deploying a new voting system. For example, Nevada wants 1,700-plus precinct caucus chairs to use an app to announce the results of that precinct's virtual vote, and to report the results from the voting in the room.
"I would say that's still an open question, not so much in principle [using an app] but in demonstrating that the state party will have the resources and the bodies to carry that out," Roosevelt said.
The DNC Rules Committee has granted conditional approval to Iowa and Nevada for their 2020 plans. Both states are responding to new DNC rules issued last December that require its caucus states to offer a remote voting option to increase participation. But the RBC panel has not yet granted final approval.
Unlike Nevada, Iowa will not be using an app for all of its local precinct caucus chairs, but instead will create four new regional precincts for its virtual voters. Those results will be awarded 10 percent of the night's allocation of delegates to the process's next stage.
When asked if the Rules Committee might instruct Nevada to follow Iowa's template, which appears simpler, Roosevelt said, "I think that's possible, but I don't know."
North Carolina and Other 2020 Acquisitions
At first glance, the drama unfolding at North Carolina's Board of Elections would appear to have little in common with the DNC's effort to deploy a new remote voting option in caucus states. Yet both are wrestling with one core issue: what constitutes a paper record when voters use computers (or a phone), but not a pen and paper, to mark the ballot.
The answer to this question of what is the best record showing voter intent -- unmediated man-made ink marks or a computer-clarified summary -- will come into play when results are close enough to trigger recounts. Whether the public will accept the outcome of that process, will, in part, depend on the vote count evidence presented.
Steeping back, across the country, many states and counties are now acquiring new voting systems for the first time in a dozen or more years. These voting systems may end up being used for a decade or more. That's why precedents being set are so important.
For example, the Alaska Democratic Party wants to use a smartphone system as a ballot-marking device for its 2020 caucuses. At least one RBC member doesn't want the DNC to endorse that system, because he opposes internet voting. That system is additionally controversial because it uses technologies that have not yet been federally certified.
In another controversial example, Georgia just announced it would acquire and deploy a new statewide system of ballot-marking devices consisting of "30,000 voting machines, 30,000 printers, 3,500 scanners and 8,000 electronic voter registration terminals," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said, "in time for the March 24 presidential preference primary."
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