Strange Loop

Freeing the software that runs our elections

Elections in the US rely heavily on software. Whether we cast our votes using a computer, or on paper ballots that are then scanned, software interprets our votes, counts them, tabulates the results and calls the winner. Almost all of this software is proprietary, and owned by a handful of large companies.

A few jurisdictions have plans to move to open source software, are funding its development, or are already using it. I'll give an overview of open source software projects for election-related software around the US, with a focus on San Francisco's project, where I'm on the Technical Advisory Committee.

Roan Kattouw

Roan has contributed to MediaWiki for over 10 years, and works as a software engineer at the Wikimedia Foundation. In his spare time, he serves on the Technical Advisory Committee for San Francisco's Open Source Voting System project.