Makena: There’s some off-the-shelf mobile voting software on the market already, but you built your own. How’s your app different from what’s already out there?
Bradley: Four years ago, we put together a team of different companies with different areas of expertise and have been building this system. It is end-to-end encrypted and end-to-end verified. It is air gapped, and it has multifactor authentication and biometric screening. Most importantly, it’s open source. I estimate we have eight to 10 months of internal work left to do. Then we’re going to submit it to Defcon and to NIST and get all their feedback. Once we’re happy with it, we’ll put it up, and it will be open source and free. At that point, any government can either use the code directly and adapt it to their own needs for their jurisdiction, or they can have a vendor do it for them.
Then phase three kicks in, which is why I wrote the book. As hard as the tech part has been, the even harder part is passing legislation everywhere that actually makes local voting available legally.
Makena: Regardless of how secure voting may be at any location, former president Donald Trump has normalized questioning the integrity of our elections. Could mobile voting make things worse?
Bradley: Does voting fraud actually exist? The answer is no.
It’s a Trump-manufactured myth because he can’t accept the notion of losing. But let’s accept that even if it’s not a real thing, it exists because he says it does. He’s going to raise that about every form of voting, whether it’s in person, mail in, or early or anything else if he thinks it might be in his favor.
I’m not proposing that we get rid of any current form of voting, and I would argue that what we have built is exponentially more secure than any other forms of voting. I’m just saying let’s make this an additional option. Some people will use it, and some may not. My daughter who just turned 18 will use it; my dad, who’s turning 80, probably would not. That’s OK.
The Chatroom
Would you ever vote via your phone or an app? What do you think this could do for elections?
Send your thoughts to mail@wired.com to let me know!
And from the mailbox: Responding to last week’s Chat Room question, Paul wrote to me remarking how “astonishing” it was that Trump’s own supporters don’t find his rush to start new businesses “sketchy.” My thoughts? We still don’t have many details on Trump’s crypto business, but I’d bet the whole endeavor has less to do with making money and more to do with winning over votes from the crypto base. Which I guess is a real base, now that Harris and Trump have both appealed to it this election cycle!
WIRED Reads
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What Else We’re Reading
🔗 Behind Kamala Harris’s Rise: Silicon Valley’s Wealthiest Woman: Research done on behalf of Laurene Powell Jobs (a close friend to Kamala Harris) was instrumental in turning Silicon Valley megadonors against President Joe Biden’s reelection. (The New York Times)
🔗 How Google Made the Ad Tech Industry Revolve Around Itself: Google’s ad tech antitrust trial started earlier this month and prosecutors have presented evidence alleging that the company manipulated ad auctions and favored its own products over those of its competitors. (The Verge)
🔗 Two Suspects Charged in $230 Million Cryptocurrency Theft: Two crypto fraudsters were arrested on theft charges alleging that the pair duped people out of more than $230 million in cryptocurrency … and you can see how they spent it all over TikTok. (The Block)
The Download
We took a quick break for the pod this week, but catch up on all our recent episodes here!
And for a very non-political recommendation: Watch Uzumaki on Max when it comes out Sunday September 29. I’ve been waiting years for this show, and I just finished rereading the manga ahead of its release. If you watch it, let me know what you think!🌀🐌🌀
That’s it for today—thanks again for subscribing. You can get in touch with me via email, Instagram, X, and Signal at makenakelly.32.