Rock-The-Vote goes open source

Dear Jonathan: Today's news (below) and the blog for up-to-date info. on the matter:
http://www.trustthevote.org/......

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Rock the Vote Goes "Open Source" in Partnership with OSDV Foundation's TrustTheVote Project 

New Alliance to Deploy OSS Technology to Help Register Voters

Washington DC - July 28th, 2009 - Rock the Vote and Open Source Digital Voting (OSDV) Foundation's
TrustTheVote Project are partnering to introduce new online voter registration tools based on open
source technology.  The TrustTheVote Project will provide its open source technology platform to
enable Rock the Vote to streamline and improve the user-facing registration process and help State
elections offices process registration forms. 

"Last year, Rock the Vote ran the largest non-partisan youth voter registration drive in history,
helping a record number of young people participate in the elections process through online,
mobile, and grassroots outreach," said Heather Smith, President of Rock the Vote.

"The sheer volume of voter registration applications particularly seen in the last election puts a
tremendous strain on elections officials across the country.  Millions of new voter registration
forms land in elections offices days before deadlines, and precisely at the time when staff are
most focused on the important work of actually conducting elections," explained Smith. "Through
this new technology we hope to work closely with election officials in creating a more streamlined
and efficient process."
 
"That's where the TrustTheVote Project can help," said Gregory Miller, Co-Executive Director of the
OSDV Foundation. "We're excited about this alliance with Rock the Vote because it allows the
Foundation's TrustTheVote Project to advance our cause of publicly owned technology to modernize
the voter registration process.  We have been collaborating with States' Elections Directors who
are pleased to see so many citizens register, but wary of the bottleneck created by new
registrations which require manual re-entry of data from the signed forms."
 
"In furtherance of our open source mandate," said John Sebes, Chief Technology Officer of the
Foundation and the TrustTheVote Project, "we aspire to provide States with a standard means and
data protocol to receive voter registration data digitally, if they so choose.  This way, officials
only need to digitally scan the signed registration form to verify it against previously received
digital data and digitally capture the signature. Elections staff can more efficiently verify data
and signatures, and bypass labor-intensive data re-entry."
 
"The advantage of partnering with the TrustTheVote Project," added Ms. Smith, "is that it combines
their expertise in voter registration technology and Rock the Vote's 18 year history in reaching
and mobilizing America's young voters to participate in politics. 

Rock the Vote expects to begin roll out of its new online voter registration system based on the
TrustTheVote Project technology in time for this fall's election season.

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About the TrustTheVote Project and the OSDV Foundation:
The Open Source Digital Voting (OSDV) Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public benefits
organization dedicated to sustaining development efforts to create freely available, open source
technology for use in managing elections and conducting voting in the U.S.  The Foundation's
flagship effort is the TrustTheVote Project - a digital public works project, creating freely
available open source elections technology maintained in a public trust to ensure free access and
transparency.  The design process relies on a collaboration of States' elections officials
consorting in a growing stakeholder community to review and comment on all design specifications.
The project work is conducted by a small team of highly experienced technology architects, supported
by a volunteer community of developers, voting technology experts, and policy specialists.
 
www.TrustTheVote.org

About Rock The Vote:
Rock the Vote's mission is to engage and build the political power of young people in order to
achieve progressive change in our country.  Rock the Vote uses music, popular culture and new
technologies to engage and incite young people to register and vote in every election. And we give
young people the tools to identify, learn about, and take action on the issues that affect their
lives, and leverage their power in the political process. 

www.RockTheVote.com  

Marie-Louise Clark, Rocket Science, 415-608-2209

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Marie Clark
RocketScience For TrustTheVote
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marie@rocketscience.com
 
"Be the change you want to see in the World"
---Mahatma Gandhi