Q: What is this all about?

Electronic voting has been in use in corporations, universities, roaming town meetings (AmericaSpeaks.com), focus groups, stockholder meetings, conventions and even in the Wayland Public School system.  Click here to see some examples and click here to see still other examples.

The technology and cost has evolved to a point where it can now be considered to be used in New England Town Meeting and Wayland has just voted to accept a FREE demonstration from Options Technologies Interactive (OTI) at Annual Town Meeting 2011.

Electronic voting will allow votes to be counted fast, accurately and privately.  Every time electronic voting is used it will enable to vote with their hearts, minds and pocketbooks. Electronic voting will enable open town meeting to live far into the future.

Q: why is options technologies Interactive doing this for us?

OTI is a leader in the field of audience response systems and you can get to their website by clicking here.

OTI made the decision to move into the market of the most famous town meeting of them all, New England Town Meeting.  A place where their industry has never penetrated.  Why?  New England town meeting has its own nuances concerning check in and check out plus its rules and procedures on voting.  Additionally in Massachusetts, we have a state bar-code system through the Elections Division of the Secretary of State which can and should be integrated into the voter participation.  A New England town meeting poses a great challenge to this industry in that we never know who or how many people will attend any given night of deliberation.  These systems were first optimized to handle known sized audiences or groups.  Lastly, there is tremendous political energy required to bring an electronic voting system to a Massachusetts town.  Something I’ve personally learned the hard way.

OTI has agreed to come to Wayland and host our ATM 2011 FREE of charge.   This one time hosting will use up to 2,000 keypads, with receivers, computers, software, ‘Welcome’ stations and a team of employees who will fly, drive and live in hotels for up to 5 nights to show us how an Electronic Town Meeting can be done for us.

Out of this, OTI will get a better product for the entire voter-market-space and will become a proven provider for all towns who wish to consider bringing their town meeting into the 21st century.

What Wayland gets is a live demonstration which will help us to make an informed decision as to whether we will ultimately use it, rent it, lease it, share it or buy it outright.  What an incredible opportunity for us.

Q: does alan reiss work for OTI or receive any financial gain from this?

On the floor of town meeting, one of the speakers at the CON microphone briefly posed a question (towards the end of his speech) that all of the people at the PRO microphone should declare who they work for.

I work for LTX-Credence in Norwood Mass. a maker of automatic semiconductor test equipment and have been working for them for the past 10 years.  I have been an electrical engineer in the field of automatic testing for the past 30 years.

“I Alan J Reiss have no financial interest or gain in OTI or any other electronic voting company.  I receive no financial benefit from OTI or any other electronic voting supplier.”

My reasons for doing this are no more clear than what is explained on this website.  I feel that Wayland’s town meeting is in trouble and electronic voting is one solution that has the potential to address three major problems in one stroke.  Those problems being speed of the vote, accuracy of the vote, and the issues surrounding public voting.

What I do I do for free and even at my own expense because I care about Wayland and about my Wayland neighbors of the past 21 years.

Q: Open vs. representative town meeting?

By law in Massachusetts there are two types of town meetings.  Open and Representative.  For both types of town meetings the rules of protocol, procedure and order are essentially the same.  The primary difference between the two is who attends town meeting to represent the general populace.

Representative Town Meeting - Transparency for the People

A body of elected delegates, with numbers usually based on precinct and population, have volunteered and have been chosen to attend the town meetings and vote on behalf of the public.  By default, the votes are not private unless 2/3rds of the delegates vote (in the open) to make a particular vote private or the entire warrant private.  It seems most logical that representative town meeting should be voted in the open with full disclosure and transparency to the public that elected them. The reason for this is because the delegates are elected to represent and are accountable to others.  One could say that the ‘others’ should have the ability to see how their representatives vote.

Because of this, it is curious that there is a procedure in the law to allow a representative town meeting to vote privately but this is the case.  It has been explained to me that the reluctance for representative delegates to vote opening is that, in some cases, they are also employed by the town or have their incomes somehow tied to the town.  If this is true then this is a conflict of interest and, in my opinion, those individuals should either vote openly or not serve as delegates.

Open Town Meeting - Privacy for the People

The delegates to Open Town Meeting are the voters themselves and they represent their own interests directly.  This means that the voters of Open Town Meeting are only accountable to themselves and have no obligation to show their vote to anybody else.

By law, the default voting condition in Open Town Meeting is non-private.  If privacy is desired then it must be voted on (in the open) by a locally determined quantum.  In Wayland that quantum is 50%. 

Voting privately in Open Town Meeting using 17th century techniques (as we do) is very time consuming and I believe that this is the reason why a population who would seemingly have no obligation to show their private vote openly would choose private voting so rarely.  (Twice in the last 40 years for Wayland.)  The general population is making a tradeoff of privacy vs. time.

To change this, its going to take a change to either the moderator’s rules, a town code change or a change at the state level.

The law usually lags technology.  This site is dedicated to catching it up.

Electronic Voting applies in both systems

Electronic voting can give absolute disclosure for Representative Town Meeting and absolute privacy for Open Town Meeting.

In Wayland, electronic voting will give all of us the privacy we want in seconds.  No more tradeoff anymore.

Q: What is the system composed of?

Handheld Micro+ keypads (2,000 to handle a full field house town meeting), a dedicated and non-internet connected laptop computer, voting software, receivers, a screen and projection system plus a number of welcome stations composed of computers and bar code readers.

Q: How do we check into town meeting?

Normally you would approach a table with in-take tellers who look up your address and check you in with a pencil or pen mark in a box on a sheet of paper which has your name and address and a Mass state generated unique ID number complete with a bar code.  In our current system we make no use of this bar code.

Under the new system you would approach a welcome station which would do the same operation but instead of checking a box, the bar code would be scanned and you would be handed a keypad ‘clicker’ which also has a bar code on it.  The combination of these two bar codes for a unique signature which serves to add one of the levels of security of the system.  By using the bar code system, the town clerk would not have to perform manual labor, after the fact, to record who came to town meeting.  In fact we would even know who came by date which is something we don’t know now.  Additionally, we would know precisely how many people are voting in attendance and what the size of the quorum is, if in fact, we do have a quorum or not.

Q: How do we check out of town meeting?

If you decide to leave town meeting early or at the end you simply drop the keypad into a box and exit.  The keypads will have built in RFID and will be scanned later on in one very quick operation after all have left.

If you happen to leave the meeting with a keypad then you will be notified by mail to return it.  All keypads are deactivated automatically after each meeting and any keypad which has been taken cannot be used in a future meeting until it is checked into the system.

Q: can i give my keypad to another person to vote for me?

That would be against the rules and it is illegal.  So you should not do this.

Q: what about the cost of the system?

Ultimately the price would be determined by looking at a number of vendors who would compete not just on price but on features and integration to New England town meeting.  The price of all technology tends to come down over time and the buy decision would not be for another year or beyond that.

The system can be town shared comfortably with another town (ie. Westwood who has shown interest) this would cut the price almost in half.

Using an ‘off the shelf’ keypad (ie. one that resembles a telephone keypad which is familiar to everybody) would cut our expenses vs. using a custom made keypad that only has three buttons.

The real costs are much more expensive in not doing it.

Longer town meetings.  Inaccurate voting and decisions.  Public voting which drives people away from attending and degrades our democracy.

We will save money by cutting town meeting nights.  Cutting our child-care expenses and just saving personal time.

The best way to look at this is that we will try this next year and then determine what the real costs are.

This is the true benefit of getting a FREE demonstration.

Q: does the system provide cost savings by using it?

ABSOLUTELY !    Click here to see the Return-On-Investment analysis and dialogue.

Q: what about the radio frequency transmissions?

The keypads operate on a spread-spectrum, frequency hopping scheme and on a WiFi like set of channels.  The power output of these keypads are a fraction of a standard cell phone and the keypads only burst when you press a key to vote and they burst for a tiny fraction of a second.  This means that over the course of the entire meeting the keypad transmitter may be on for a second or a few seconds.

Cell phones transmit power for long periods of time and they are directed to be used against your ear and close to your head.

The keypads are handheld and are not directed to be held anywhere near your ear.

The transmission power drops off inversely with the distance squared so that this fractional power is well attenuated.

Your life is filled with wireless devices like cell phones, garage door openers, RF remote controls, Fast Lane toll devices, WiFi internet and more.  

Wireless devices make life easier and more secure, they even save lives.

Q: what about the security of the system?

The system has multiple levels of security and error checking.  These are as follows:

1. 1.The combination of the citizen bar-code and the keypad bar-code forming a unique signature
   

2. 2.The hardware is proprietary and to know how it encodes and encrypts would require inside information which is protected and highly illegal to breakthrough.
   

3. 3.Frequency Hopping which is a military standard that randomizes the sequences of frequencies that are used to transmit the information.  These are selected in real time and are randomized and only known between the keypad and the receiver.
   

4. 4.Partial packets means that no packet of information stores the complete information and must be reassembled by the receiver through the unique signature which are encrypted.
   

5. 5.The encryption itself is very strong and uses a large number of bits which typically would require powerful computers working over extremely long periods of time to decipher... much longer than the voting windows.
   

6. 6.The asynchronous nature of the keypad interactions which is completely non-re-produceable and randomized.
   

One scenario would be a cyber attack from the outside world.  This is eliminated by the fact that the voting computer is never connected to the internet and only receives updates to its operating system by DVD under controlled circumstances.

Another scenario is far fetched but worth mentioning.

A clandestine truck is sitting in the parking lot which millions of dollars worth of sophisticated equipment and armed with proprietary secrets all hell-bent on hacking into Wayland town meeting. 

It is also important to mention the fact that it would be illegal and risky to do this.

The expense of such an operation would far exceed any risk benefit that could be obtained and it would be far more cost effective to simply bribe large numbers of town meeting attendees.

Jamming would require large amount of focused power since the system operates on a wide band of frequency hopping channels.  If this would happen, it would not shut the system down but rather degrade its speed and this would become obvious.

Hacking and Jamming is simply not a significant risk to local town meeting using electronic voting.

Q: how do i vote with the system?

The keypad will resemble a standard push button telephone and this choice is made so that we can minimize the expense of the system.  If a custom keypad were to be created with 3 buttons (which is the more desirable configuration) then the price of the final system would be more expensive.  But perhaps this could be worked out when it comes time to seriously consider purchasing the equipment.

The buttons 1  2  and  3 will correspond respectively to  YAY,  NAY  and  ABSTAIN.

The moderator will call the vote and open the voting window.  During this voting window you would choose to press any of the three buttons 1 - YAY,  2 - NAY,  3 - ABSTAIN.   (If you press nothing then it is also ABSTAINing).  During this open window of say, 1 minute, you may choose to change your vote as many times as you want.  Only your LAST key press will be counted and will be your final vote.

When the voting window closes then no further button presses will be counted by the system.

The final results of YAY, NAY and ABSTAIN will be displayed onto a screen as a bar graph with absolute votes and percentages.

Long standing counted votes will now be a matter of one minute with accurate answers that go way beyond the accuracy that we have now.

Q: is the system accurate?

If you want to count something use a computer.  If you want to inject error use a human.

But do click here to see how inaccurate and time consuming our 17th century system really is.

But yes.  The range of the keypad / receivers is 300 feet.  The maximum distance on the voting floor to any receiver is about 120 feet.  This means that the range is about 3 times greater than the maximum dimension so the power at the receiver is about 9 times greater than the minimum required.  This creates a very good signal to noise ratio and the voting error should be in the ‘parts per million’.  If 1,000 people vote 1,000 times (1,000,000 votes) then you might expect one error with this math. 

Compare this to the teller counting standing people method where both human error and people moving around are always problematic.  I have to believe that this electronic system is 1,000’s of times more accurate then the method we have now.

Q: does this system provide voting privacy?

Unless somebody is watching you fingers press the buttons on your keypads then your vote is only between you and your keypad.  It should not be hard to shield your vote from any other on-lookers.  Click here for more information on private voting at town meeting.

Q: does the system keep personal voting records?

The system operates in two modes.  The AUDIT mode and the TOWN MEETING mode.

The AUDIT mode is used once or on an occasional basis when the town engages with a neutral third party (ie. accounting firm) who can certify the accuracy of the system.  These systems are widely used in many different areas of government, education and business and they are trusted.  The AUDIT mode, when audited properly with a neutral third party, can serve to provide official confidence.  

Also, compare this to what we have now.  How do you know the moderator heard your voice when you shouted?  How do you know you were actually counted by the teller?  Where is the written record of that?

Given the choice between a computer counting machine or a counting human, it is much better to give the counting function to the task of an electronic machine that was built to do that rather than leave it to humans who are proven to inject error into the system and in a variety of ways.

In the TOWN MEETING mode there is no record created or stored which links voters to how they voted.  This maintains parity with the system we have now.  We have no permanent record of how people vote after the vote takes place.

Since no permanent record is ever created then there is no record that can be obtained through a public records request.  Public record requests can only obtain public documents which exist, they cannot get documents which do not exist.

The actual totals of each vote YAY, NAY and ABSTAIN are permanently stored for all to see and obtain.  This again, maintains parity with what we have now.

In both modes, there is a record of keypad serial numbers vs. citizens which is used to retrieve keypads which are taken from the town meeting.  This record can be obtained by a public records request but this record carries NO VOTING information.

Q: is private voting legal at town meeting?

Private voting is in M.G.L. 39:15 and it is specifically allowed and mentioned in the Mass Secretary of State’s Guide to town meetings.  Private voting at town meeting is legal but rarely practiced.  Why?  Because up until now the only method to do this was the paper ballot which is very time consuming.

With electronic voting you will have the combination of speed + accuracy + privacy.

Q: town meeting is a legislature.  doesn’t a legislature have open voting?

In an Open Town Meeting, we are self-legislators and nobody needs to know our business and our votes.

In Wayland’s town meeting, we are our own legislators who are accountable only to ourselves.

When we have legislators who represent us then we need to know how they vote.

Therefore, in an Representative Town Meeting the representatives should vote in the open.

Conversely, in an Open Town Meeting, which is what Wayland is, there is no requirement to vote in the open. We can choose to vote in private if we are willing to wait a long time to count the paper ballots.

The fact that we have voted in the open for so long is only a consequence of the technology.

With electronic voting we can vote in private and very quickly.

It Is a new era and the 'stare down' at town meeting is on its way out.

Nobody needs to know what you are thinking and how you are voting. It is your business only.

Q: do you want private voting at town meeting?

We have private voting at the polls whether we like it or not.  However, you can tell anybody you want how you wish to vote or how you voted.  What you don’t get at the polls is to see how somebody else voted unless they decide to tell you how they voted.

At town meeting and because of the 17th century techniques of counting votes we see how others vote and others see how we vote whether we like it or not.

With the addition of 21st century technology we can keep our voting private and others can keep their voting private from us.

At town meeting 19-May-2010 a speech was given at the CON microphone on the subject of not allowing voting privacy.   Click here to see that speech and decide for yourself.

I’ve heard good reasons why people want to have privacy when they vote.

I’ve yet to here a good reason why somebody wants to know how other people are voting.

Q: has there ever been a demo from OTI in wayland before?

Yes, on February 4th, 2010 OTI came to Wayland to perform a demonstration for a group of about 50 people in the large hearing room at the town hall.  A number of questions came from that meeting and this meeting was recorded by WayCAM.tv.  Click here to see the film and the Q & A from that meeting.

Q: is the system fast?

Yes.  Each receiver can process 500 votes in about 2 1/2 seconds.  2,000 votes would be processed in parallel in about 5 seconds.  The actual voting window is to be determined but it may be 30 seconds or 60 seconds.  So the speed of the voting results is only really limited by the voting window.  I would call this system ‘one minute voting’.

Q: how do i know that the system has registered my vote?

When you push a vote button the system will read your keypad signal and register a vote in its control software.  At that point, the system will send a signal back to your keypad that it has successfully registered your vote by flashing an LED light once.

Q: what happens if people say that the keypad isn’t working?

Before the keypad is handed out it is tested.  The keypads are under a yearly maintenance plan which ensures their working condition.

Each time the keypad is used, a green light will show that the keypad is working.  If, in the unlikely case that a keypad were to stop working during the meeting then they would go to the intake table and have it exchanged for another keypad.  

Q: Will i be able to place more than one vote for a given article?

No.  During the open window for each article vote in which this system is used, you can change you mind as many times as you want.  YEA, NAY or ABSTAIN.  But the last button you press is your FINAL vote and you will never be able to cast more than ONE VOTE per article.

Q: how do we see the voting results?

At the end of the voting period of time, the moderator closes the window on the main computer and the results are then displayed onto a large screen via a video port to a PC projector.  The visual of the display will be a dynamic powerpoint slide showing a bar chart graphic of absolute votes or percentages - the moderator can decide to toggle between different displays. But town meeting will have an answer right there at the voting window closure and it will be an accurate answer from the Town Meeting.

Q: What happens if somebody takes a voting keypad home from town meeting?

As stated before, each keypad is scanned to the citizen ID of the person it is assigned to.  If a keypad is inadvertently taken home then a letter would go out to the address of the citizen with a request to have it returned.  I’m quite sure that the citizen would be happy to return the keypad once discovered that it was mistakenly taken.

Also, any keypad that is taken out of the town meeting is automatically checked out after the town meeting and cannot be used for any future town meeting unless returned back to the system and re-scanned in.  Other than a mistake, there is no reason for a keypad to be taken home by anybody.

Q: What about the system maintenance?

The town would purchase an extended warranty and maintenance contract which would also cover software upgrades.  The keypads could be replaced on an as-needed basis and once a year all keypads would have their batteries replaced manually.  The batteries are watch batteries.

Q: how much does the system cost?

The demonstration for ATM 2011 is FREE

However, the Options Technology quote was about $105,000 for a system with 2,000 receivers.  Additional equipment are ‘Welcome Stations’, central laptop computer, high lumen PC projector, router, installation.  The petitioner article submitted to Town Meeting stated a cap of $150,000 and it is my feeling that the actual number will be in the $145,000.  There is also a annual support contract for warranty, maintenance and upgrade of 8% after the first two years which are included.

Q: what is the useful lifetime of the system?

At least 10 years (with support contract).  At two meetings per year, the cost would be amortized over at least 20 meetings.

Q: can we reduce our costs by time sharing the system with other towns?

Yes.  This is a possibility but only in pieces.  The receivers should be hardwired into the Field House and the laptop and software license cannot be shared and, I feel, should not be shared.  The keypads could be shared but only if the sharing town has also standardized on the same manufacturer.  Remember, the equipment is based on proprietary chips.

Westwood is interested in sharing E-Voting equipment and I am in contact with the town manager.  Click Here to read the letter that he wrote to our town in this regard.

Q: have we answered all of your questions?

If not then contact us with your question.  We will answer it and post the results on this page.