Category Archives: Events

30 Apr

Utah GOP Sets the Standards for Mobile Voting in Groundbreaking Virtual Convention

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Utah GOP Sets the Standards for Mobile Voting in Groundbreaking Virtual Convention

Full press release issued here. BOSTON and SALT LAKE CITY, April 30, 2020 — Voatz, the Boston-based mobile voting platform, today announced the successful completion of a first-of-its-kind virtual convention with the Utah Republican Party to narrow down key races in upcoming elections, including the race for governor and the 4th Congressional seat. 7,430 delegates were credentialed using the Voatz platform to participate across this year’s state convention, and five local county conventions. In the state convention, the party witnessed a record-breaking 93% participation rate, voting via the Voatz app using smartphones. This election also reflects the largest use of ranked-choice voting in Utah’s history.  Voatz was engaged to work with the state at the end of March. Building […]

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7 Mar

Voatz Successfully Completes an Election in Utah County, Marking its Tenth Governmental Pilot in the Nation

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Voatz Successfully Completes an Election in Utah County, Marking its Tenth Governmental Pilot in the Nation

Last week, Utah County, UT successfully completed its third mobile voting pilot using Voatz to enable remote voting for overseas citizens, deployed military and citizens with disabilities. This marks Voatz’s tenth governmental pilot in the nation. The pilot saw great success, with 78 total submitted ballots, marking a 91% return rate on all ballots sent to these voters. This pilot was also available to voters with disabilities, including a voter who had just received a kidney transplant and was unable to travel to the polls. “We are so impressed with how knowledgeable, supportive and professional the Voatz team is. I love how smooth and easy the application and process is, […]

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13 Feb

Voatz Open Press Call Transcribed from February 13, 2020

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The following Voatz press call took place on February 13, 2020 from 1-1:30pm ET. The contents of the call are transcribed below, lightly edited for punctuation and typos. Full audio is available here. Robert Dowling, Moderator: Use the chat function to send us your questions. Direct all your questions to moderator and that way we will take them on as we have with, on a first come first serve basis. As some of you know, Voatz is regularly called on by members of the media and influencer community to respond to all kinds of conversations, including what’s been raised by The New York Times today. Voatz as a small team […]

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1 May

Nigerian Candidates Use Voatz Technology on the 2019 General Election Campaign Trail

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Nigerian Candidates Use Voatz Technology on the 2019 General Election Campaign Trail

ABUJA, NIGERIA — A new mobile application developed by Voatz was used by 16 female candidates during the Nigerian 2019 General Elections earlier this year. The application, called Women Influencing Nations, or WiN, is designed as a politically-oriented social media platform to help women candidates run for office. Using WiN, candidates are able to garner followers, share events and create posts, and even collect political donations via mobile money. The Voatz team traveled to Nigeria during the January campaign season to assist in the roll out of WiN. In partnership with UN Women, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and Mina’s List, Voatz helped lead a two-day training […]

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3 Apr

Voatz Attends Conference in Georgia on “Electoral Integrity: Cybersecurity and the Reliability of Information in the Digital Era”

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Voatz Attends Conference in Georgia on “Electoral Integrity: Cybersecurity and the Reliability of Information in the Digital Era”

Last week, representatives from our team attended the 9th Annual Meeting of Election Management Bodies, a gathering hosted by the International Center for Parliamentary Studies (ICPS). The conference was held in Batumi, Georgia, and focused on the theme “Electoral Integrity: Cybersecurity and the Reliability of Information in the Digital Era”. These gatherings draw together election experts, analysts, representatives from election management bodies and research centers to discuss the challenges and complexities facing elections. During the conference, Jesse Andrews, Director of Business Development, led a conversation that explored elections and elections security in our modern era. The talk dissected the components surrounding election security: election setup, ensuring physical safety to the […]

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7 Mar

Voatz Partners with the City of Denver on Mobile Voting Pilot for 2019 Municipal Elections

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Voatz Partners with the City of Denver on Mobile Voting Pilot for 2019 Municipal Elections

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new pilot program today with the City of Denver that will provide mobile voting secured by the blockchain to deployed military personnel and overseas United States citizens during the city’s municipal elections this spring. We commend the City of Denver for seeking new, innovative technologies to improve our election infrastructure and provide secure, auditable, transparent voting options for voters. With this pilot program, Denver is leading the effort to make voting more convenient and accessible for deployed military personnel and overseas US citizens. The latest developments in smartphone hardware, encryption and blockchain technology make mobile voting a reality. This is a […]

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2 Feb

2,000+ Voters Use Voatz for the 2019 Michigan Democratic Party Convention in Detroit

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2,000+ Voters Use Voatz for the 2019 Michigan Democratic Party Convention in Detroit

On February 2, 2019, the Michigan Democratic Party used the Voatz platform for delegate credentialing and voting in Detroit, Michigan. In under an hour, more than 2,000 delegates cast their votes for three contests. “Working with Voatz has streamlined our registration and voting processes,” the Director of Party Affairs said, “since we began with Voatz, we’ve dramatically reduced our wait times during credentialing and our members report higher satisfaction with the way ballots are cast.”   

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6 Nov

Town of Millis, Massachusetts Pilots Voatz on Election Day for a Town Meeting Poll

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Town of Millis, Massachusetts Pilots Voatz on Election Day for a Town Meeting Poll

The Town of Millis in Massachusetts piloted the Voatz platform for an innovative town meeting poll on Election Day (November 6, 2018). “Voatz employees arrived early with plenty of staff, brought all equipment, and problem-solved issues (old building, poor WiFi connection, etc) throughout the day. They provided us results quickly and effectively and have remained in contact since the poll expired. Overall, we could not have asked for a better experience,” said the Town Meeting Review Committee. We thank the 425 citizens of Millis who participated using their smartphones or the Voatz tablet stations.

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27 Oct

Perils & Pearls: Building Something Socially Conscious at a Money Hackathon

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Attempting to build something socially conscious is usually frowned upon at Fintech (i.e. money focused) hackathons. I happened to be at the Money2020 2016 Hackathon (which is arguably the biggest one around) last weekend and the vibe was pretty much as I had expected. However, one of the challenge sponsors Vantiv had an interesting and somewhat different take on what they wanted participants to build. The thought of using a Sphero to create something useful was enticing enough for me to take up this challenge and so I ended choosing to work on the Vantiv challenge. My hack was called Adjutus – latin for ‘helping someone in need’. My hope was that Adjutus could enable impulse giving by […]

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5 Oct

Voatz at HUBWeek 2016!

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Team Voatz recently participated in Boston’s HUBWeek, where we spread the word on our cutting-edge mobile voting software. Here are some highlights for those of you who missed out on last week’s festivities: On Thursday 9/29, co-founder and CEO Nimit Sawhney presented at HUBWeek’s The Hype and Promise of Blockchain event at the Boston Federal Reserve. For Voatz, the advent of blockchain is all promise and no hype. Nimit’s presentation covered how the Voatz software uses blockchain technology to protect and secure votes. In short, blockchain is a continuously growing list of data,  in which each individual piece of information is linked to the preceding and subsequent “block” of data. […]

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1 Jul

Drones, Natural Disasters & the Blockchain

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At the annual AngelHack Boston Hackathon, one of the founding members of Voatz ended up utilizing the IBMs Hyperledger Blockchain for an unusual use case – DroneLine – a decentralized adhoc drone network for emergency deliveries during natural disasters. The network would enable drone owners in the vicinity of a natural disaster to participate in recovery efforts, emergency medicine delivery, etc by loaning their spare drones to DroneLine. DroneLine won the IBM Challenge for the ‘Best use of IBM Bluemix’.

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7 Jun

And the Startup Most Likely to Develop a Cult Following Is….

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Aspiring business moguls representing a cross-section of the region’s innovation economy gathered at the Microsoft NERD Center on June 6 for the 2016 MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge’s Startup Spotlight. Showcasing their products and services to more than 350 would-be customers, partners, investors, business development and technology experts, the 30 startups addressed markets ranging from medical devices, agriculture, transportation and even private napping. In addition to making valuable contacts during the night’s interactive networking, the firms vied for bragging rights for 3 prizes: Company I Want to Have a Beer With Future Unicorn Most Likely to Develop a Cult Following The Voatz team was deeply honored to win the ‘Most Likely to […]

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4 Jun

Voatz in Action at the 2016 Massachusetts Democratic Party State Convention

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Nearly 2000 delegates interacted with the Voatz platform at the 2016 Massachusetts Democratic Party State Convention held at the Tsongas Center in Lowell MA on June 4, 2016. The delegate badges were specifically tagged with Voatz QR codes to simplify the process of authentication, and direct scanning was enabled via the Voatz Event Manager (VEM) application.

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13 May

Voatz in Action at the Massachusetts State House for Generation Citizen’s 2016 Spring Civics Day

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At Generation Citizen’s Spring 2016 Civics Day held on Friday, May 13, 2016 at the Massachusetts State House in Boston, around 150 eminent judges used the Voatz platform to vote via their mobile devices. Nearly 350 students from Boston, Malden, Brockton, Arlington, Newton, and Lowell took their first step in becoming lifelong active citizens by presenting their action civics projects from the Generation Citizen semester. The Voatz Analytics Dashboard was also used for real time scoring. Several prominent organizations were involved in supporting the event.

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8 Mar

Voatz Wins the Audience Favorite Award at Mass Innovation Nights

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The Voatz team was honored to receive the Audience Favorite award at the Mass Innovation Nights #84 at District Hall in Boston on March 8th 2016. Many thanks to the Mass Innovation Nights team and Microsoft for sponsoring the event and to District Hall for hosting us. The event brought together all facets of the civic tech ecosystem, from the big players like our sponsor Microsoft New England, to the grassroots participants like our featured startups, to the Massachusetts government. The night featured experts from Microsoft, Business Insurance & Benefits Services of MA, Resilient Coders and a representative from Emerson College. The government also announced a new initiative called GovNext. From their […]

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7 Oct

Voatz Is Selected to Present at Harvard’s #Tech4Democracy Showcase and Challenge

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The Voatz team is honored to be selected to participate in this event as part of HUBWeek. The “showcase” features students and alumni from Harvard University and other area universities, as well as civic tech startups, entrepreneurs, and passionate citizens from across the Greater Boston area. Each presenter will demonstrate their idea through posters, prototypes, and other creative demonstrations. The “challenge” features an esteemed panel of experts and leaders in the local civic tech movement to select the best idea/demonstration. In addition, everyone will be invited to vote for their favorite idea. The #Tech4Democracy Showcase and Challenge was organized with support from: Boston Civic Media Consortium The City of Boston The City […]

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