Democratic investor Bradley Tusk said in an interview on the Politico Tech podcast on Tuesday that he envisions a future where voting is as easy as ordering dinner or hailing a car from your smartphone.
Tusk, who previously worked for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and former Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, believes mobile voting can help alleviate hyper-partisanship and low voter turnout. On his POLITICO Tech podcast, Tusk said: InterviewTusk defended the mobile voting initiative, refuting criticism and citing successful pilot programs that have boosted voter participation and increased security.
Tusk is CEO of Tusk Venture Partners, a venture capital fund focused on startups in regulated sectors, and also serves as president of Tusk Strategies, a political consulting firm, and Ivory Gaming Acquisition Corporation, a Nasdaq-listed company. According to He invested $20 million into his website and developed a secure mobile voting app called Mediate. Reported.
“This is very important because that's how we live today. And fundamentally, I think many would agree that our democracy is not working. It's deeply dysfunctional, deeply polarised. I spent the first 15 years of my career working directly in government, and what I learned from all of that is that every policy outcome is the result of political input,” Tusk explained.
The Big Idea @Politico Today's Technology Podcast: Is voting by mobile phone the key to fixing our dysfunctional partisan politics?
Bradley Tusk thinks so, and has spent millions of dollars trying to make mobile voting a reality.
listen: https://t.co/RfafkM7IHI
— Steven Overly (@StevenOverly) September 17, 2024
The moderator then asked Tusk to elaborate on the mobile voting trial that was being carried out in seven states.
“These were limited pilots. They were targeted at deployed military personnel or people with disabilities. The reason we picked those two groups is because they are very politically sympathetic,” Task said. “We wanted a mix of Republican and Democratic states. Republican states like West Virginia, Utah and South Carolina really liked the idea of making it easier for deployed military personnel to vote. Meanwhile, liberal states like Oregon, Colorado and Washington really liked the idea of making it easier for people with disabilities to vote.”
Tusk said the results were promising, with voter turnout soaring, security audits by the National Cyber Security Center passing without issue, and participant satisfaction rates unanimously high. Tusk also detailed a multi-faceted security strategy for mobile voting, including biometric authentication, multi-factor authentication, encryption, end-to-end verifiability, and open source to ensure transparency.
“Whether it's security or privacy, if the election officials themselves are corrupt, they can compromise either of those things, you know? This applies to mail-in voting, in-person voting, paper voting. But just to be clear, I'm not saying that mobile voting should replace every form of voting. I'm saying, 'Okay, let's create another option,'” he explained. (Related article: Supreme Court in key swing state rules that mis-dated mail-in ballots can be thrown out)
Pamela Smith of Verified Voting criticized the idea of internet voting, pointing out flaws in terms of privacy, confidentiality and security.
“I'm sure there's no one who wouldn't want to put on their bunny slippers and vote at home, but the challenge is, just like we're talking about a physical ballot that the voter looks at when they vote, they've got to look at it and make sure it says what they want it to say and that it's correct,” Smith told Politico Tech. Podcasts in June. “If you vote on the Internet, you lose it.”
Tusk is optimistic but realistic about when mobile voting will become widespread: “My most optimistic date would be probably 2025, more realistically 2026 for municipal elections, maybe some state elections, and then the rest of the decade it will be primarily at the state and local level,” he continued.
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