Bradley Tusk, a political consultant known for his aggressive tactics and early success with Uber, is spearheading a controversial effort to bring mobile voting to the United States. Backed by a $20 million investment and growing, his Mobile Voting Foundation aims to increase voter turnout by allowing citizens to cast ballots directly from their smartphones. The initiative, built around the open-source protocol VoteSecure, faces skepticism from security experts but is gaining traction in local elections, with pilot programs already underway in Alaska.
The Problem Tusk Aims to Solve
Tusk argues that low voter turnout, especially in primaries and off-year elections, incentivizes extreme political behavior. With only a small percentage of the electorate participating, elected officials are rewarded for catering to the most vocal and polarized segments of the population. By making voting more accessible, Tusk believes he can force politicians to moderate their positions and address broader public concerns. “If primary turnout is 37 percent instead of 9 percent, the underlying political incentives for an elected official to change—it pushes them to the middle,” he states.
The Technology: VoteSecure
The core of Tusk’s plan is VoteSecure, a cryptography-based protocol developed in collaboration with security expert Joe Kiniry. The system allows voters to verify the accuracy of their ballots and confirm that their votes have been received and recorded. While not a complete voting solution on its own, VoteSecure is designed as a secure backend component that can be integrated into existing election infrastructure. Tusk intends to push for legislation at the city and local levels to pilot mobile voting in smaller elections, starting with school boards and city councils.
Security Concerns and Opposition
Despite Tusk’s confidence, the initiative faces strong opposition from leading cryptographers and security experts. Ron Rivest, co-creator of the RSA encryption protocol, argues that mobile voting is not yet secure enough for widespread use. He criticizes Tusk’s approach of pushing for real-world implementation before rigorous peer review and scientific validation. “Putting up code doesn’t cut it,” Rivest says.
David Jefferson, a computer scientist specializing in voting systems, echoes these concerns, emphasizing that even perfect cryptography cannot eliminate all vulnerabilities in online voting. The fundamental risk remains that mobile devices are susceptible to hacking, malware, and coercion, making secure voting a major challenge.
The Path Forward
Tusk’s strategy is to prove the feasibility of mobile voting through small-scale experiments and legislative pushes. He believes that once the technology becomes familiar and trusted, resistance will diminish. His approach is similar to that of other tech innovations: start small, prove the concept, and then scale up.
The success of this effort hinges on overcoming security concerns and building public trust. If Tusk can demonstrate that mobile voting is both secure and reliable, it could fundamentally change how elections are conducted in the United States. However, if vulnerabilities are exploited or trust is broken, the entire initiative could collapse.
“Once the genie’s out of the bottle, they can’t put it back, right? That’s been true for every tech I’ve worked on.” — Bradley Tusk
The future of mobile voting remains uncertain, but Tusk’s aggressive push is forcing a debate about how to modernize democracy in the digital age
