Misleading claims from Bradley Tusk and Mobile Voting Project 

The system developed and offered by Mobile Voting Project (MVP), VoteSecure, is not a functioning mobile voting application or system. It is a cryptographic protocol that can be integrated with a mobile voting app. It cannot be used without a commercial, nonopen source, internet voting system or mobile voting app committing to integrate VoteSecure, and any jurisdiction would need to procure that voting system. 

Tusk and MVP developed a product, VoteSecure, and have promoted it as a free, open-source mobile voting application, but this is profoundly misleading. 

On its website, MVP describes in detail the process of accessing, marking and returning a ballot, claiming that this is how the “technology we have developed works.” In various media, talks, and podcast appearances, Tusk has claimed he was demonstrating VoteSecure, as he walked his audience through the steps to access a ballot on his phone, mark it and return it. The representation is false as VoteSecure can do none of those things. 

VoteSecure is a cryptographic protocol that may be integrated with a mobile or internet voting system to offer verifiability, but it will not record or transmit votes without a commercial, nonopen source voting system. 

The VoteSecure developers have made this plain on their website, which states VoteSecure is “not a complete voting system.” 

This has not hampered Mr. Tusk or MVP’s representatives from promising that it has developed a product will allow people to vote on their phones, misleading lawmakers, officials and stakeholders to think he is offering a free, open source mobile voting app. 

Mobile Voting Project’s system will not be used in Anchorage, Alaska. 

Tusk and MVP secured a front-page New York Times story promoting mobile voting that relied on the false claim that Anchorage, Alaska would soon be using MVP’s VoteSecure.

The story prompted the city clerk to issue a press release disavowing the story. Tusk continued to repeat this falsehood in the press and on podcasts causing Anchorage to issue a cease and desist letter in an attempt to stop Tusk’s false claims. 

Printing paper ballots after transmission, and “air-gapping” the tabulation device does not mitigate the security risks inherent with mobile voting. 

Tusk and MVP have incorrectly asserted that cyber-attacks can be effectively mitigated if the electronic ballot is printed on paper after it is received at the election office and the tabulation is conducted offline. 

Any cyber-attack, or manipulation of electronically transmitted ballots, can occur after the voter reviews the ballot, and before the ballot reaches the election office for printing. This means the printed ballot would reflect the corrupted votes chosen by the attacker, not the voter. Printing a ballot transmitted over the internet does not protect it from online threats. 

Download a PDF of our rebuttal here.