Anchorage Claps Back at Mobile Voting Hype

0:00Anchorage just hit a mobile voting company with a cease and desist letter for hyping their system way out of proportion. Back in March, the city called out the mobile voting project and its founder Bradley Tusk for claiming Anchorage was pioneering phone-based voting in. Local elections. A New York Times piece last November spotlighted them as this big experiment in secure internet voting, but officials say that's not the full picture. The city has offered electronic voting options since 2018, mainly through email, facts, or a secure online portal like DocuSign 4. Registered Voters. It's powered by OmniBallet from Democracy Live, used in thousands of elections nationwide. But only a tiny slice of folks used it last year. Just 136 voters did. Mostly those abroad without printers. And so far, 182 for the upcoming race. CityClear Jamie Hines fired back quick after the time story, calling it a total misrepresentation that made it sound like mobile voting was the main.

1:00Game now. She's gotten calls from places like Vermont and Maryland, plus international press, all stirred up by the hype. Assembly chair, Christopher Constant worried, it painted Anchorage as some radical push for ditching paper ballots. The time stands by their reporting, saying it came from chats with local officials and experts on digital voting trends. There was talk of partnering with the mobile voting project on new software called Vote Secure. But that fell through, Democracy Live is still open to. It down the line though. With ballots due, April 7th for six assembly seats, two school board spots and some bonds, Anchorage reminds everyone, draw boxes, vote centers. Or mail work fine, postmarked by that date to count. They're keeping elections straight forward amid all this noise. From your city, powered by AI, this is Anchorage News Today. I'm Corey with the story.