Chandler City Council approved a pilot program for a mobile voting app this week, allowing residents to vote on their phones and tablets in a test election this November.
Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke says the test is to see how residents respond to mobile voting, including younger members of the community, ages 13-17, who normally wouldn’t be allowed to vote.
“Two things, we’re wanting to really see the community response to this. We’re also, since it doesn’t count, we’re catching voters who are younger, junior high and high school, to give them a chance to test the technology as well,” said Hartke.
Hartke says Voatz, the company behind the app, uses several layers of security to ensure votes are kept private.
“A blockchain technology vote, that uses both facial recognition and verified ID to allow to vote, we’re doing it because we believe we are the community of innovation,” said Hartke.
Hartke says Chandler has been exploring the concept of mobile voting for over a year, and that Voatz has run successful pilots in other cities in the past.
