Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, Chairman for Smartmatic, recently published an editorial in The Huffington Post UK about the need to modernise the voting system in UK.
In his piece, Malloch-Brown reflects on the low turnout observed in this year’s General Election and points out that election technology could play a vital role in increasing participation and making elections more secure.
According to a poll run by Smartmatic during Election Day in UK, four out of ten people said that being able to vote online would have made them more likely to turn out.
We invite you to take a minute to read his interesting article clicking here.
Caracas, Venezuela, December 7, 2015 – Following Venezuela’s recent elections, Smartmatic announced today that its secure automated voting platform guaranteed the flawless results of the nation’s Parliamentary vote. The London-based voting technology provider has serviced Venezuela’s last 14 national elections.
“For more than a decade, Smartmatic has proudly serviced the national elections for the people of Venezuela, demonstrating our commitment to transparency, efficiency and accountability,” said Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica. “And this year was no different proving once again that all sides of the political spectrum can be both winners and losers”.
To read the complete article, click here.
London, 2 December 2015.- A few days ago, GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller sat with SGO Chairman Lord Mark Malloch-Brown for an interview.
The conversation covered an array of interesting topics, such as the pressures and challenges facing global business leaders nowadays and the importance of resiliency in developing sustainable business models.
Lord Mark Malloch-Brown also shared his thoughts on how markets have become more complex, and how the real impact of technology on business is just beginning to be felt. He recommends practicing deep listening and strategic planning to help business to “stay on their toes.”
"At SGO, one of our most interesting traits is that all of our software programmers live not in the ivory towers of Silicon Valley or Cambridge, or even Shoreditch, but in developing countries. We have programmers in Estonia, Belarus, Venezuela, and Panama; and they experience the problems of citizens in those countries. This gives them a sort of relevant inventiveness that the traditional Western company doesn’t get".
Expanding on this idea, Malloch-Brown said: “It’s one thing to be a Western company that tries to listen but what’s attractive is if you’re lucky enough to be a developing country company – because it’s in your DNA – those are your neighborhoods that you’re designing products for”.
London, 28 October 2015.- “This year’s General Election [UK, 2015] revealed stubbornly low voter turnout at just less than two-thirds of the eligible public with almost 20 per cent of voters opting for the suspect but convenient opportunity to vote by post (a trend that has increased at each election cycle). This should be proof enough that our system is failing our democracy”.
This is one of the reasons Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, Smartmatic’s Chairman, considers that the UK should embark on a nationwide debate to discuss digital democracy and the need to update its voting system.
In his article entitled “The future of democracy must be digital: Our voting system needs to be modernised with electronic voting” and published in CITY A.M on October 28, 2015, Malloch-Brown wonders why, when it comes to elections, technology adoption in the UK is lagging far behind “when an overwhelming majority have adopted technology to make everyday tasks so much easier”.
Members of the Lords discussed draft regulations on electoral registration and asylum support on Tuesday 27 October.
Read the entire article here.
New York City, 14 October 2015.- With US voting technology nearing the end of its life-cycle, journalists, elections commissions and experts in the field are considering the different options the US has in order to update its aging voting equipment.
Award-winning journalist John Breeden recently wrote the article “Why America Needs New Voting Technology” in which he presents some extracts from a conversation he had with Smartmatic’s CEO, Antonio Mugica at the 2015 Founders Forum for Good in New York City.
Commenting on election technology, Antonio stated: "the technology exists to ensure that election results are completely accurate, auditable and verifiable". Antonio also shared some interesting insights about internet voting and how to make it work.
As Breeden points out in the article, Smartmatic’s technology is trusted because the source code that runs all of the voting machines is disclosed to all interested parties prior to the election. Not everyone gets to see and contribute to the code, so it’s not open source, but election officials and representatives from all the major political parties are able to go over it in detail to ensure no vote flipping routines or program errors exist.
Robert Cook, Smartmatic’s Worldwide Business Support Vice-President, spoke to FindBiometrics about the future of technology in elections.
Addressing the growing demand for technology-based solutions to improve election administration, he listed Internet voting and biometric authentication as two of the leading trends in the industry. “There is growing interest in adopting biometrics for the efficient and transparent authentication of voters. In addition, countries have realized that once a comprehensive biometric register is available, the information can be used in wide range of crucial government-related projects such as healthcare, financial, social and economic programs.”
“The Internet has brought great expectations to the elections industry. Currently, election management bodies around the world see Internet voting as a perfect substitute for postal voting; and there is little doubt that the future of elections is digital,” he added.
FindBiometrics is one of the leading resources of information on biometric identification and identity verification systems and solutions.
“Revolutionising the ballot box” is the title of a report by Financial Times Technology Editor Ravi Mattu on the rise of electronic voting and the current state of election administration in the UK.
In this video footage Antonio Mugica, CEO of Smartmatic, expressed the reasons why he advocates in favor of election technology: “We’re talking to more than fifty countries at the moment and we’re analysing their manual elections and the problems they have, and you can see this huge issues with tampering with manual elections. When you add technology to elections, you actually make them more robust.”
Having counted over 2.3 billion votes in automated elections around the world, Mugica believes technology to be the best antidote to election fraud and human error.
Graham Allen, a Member of the UK Parliament who is promoting the modernization of the UK election system, is confident that technology has the power to increase turnout and avoid voter suppression.
Referring to the current state of election administrations and politics in the UK he said: “I believe it needs a big shake up. And one of the ways you can blow some fresh air in is with electronic voting.”
Contrasting to these optimistic views on election technology, the video also examines the views of those opposing electronic voting.
“The case for election technology” is the title of an article by Smartmatic’s CEO and founder, Antonio Mugica. We invite you to read it and learn the philosophy behind the solutions we create to strengthen democracy.
The article analyses some of the longstanding arguments against the use of technology in the election process, and the responses made by experts, including the demonstrated benefits of well-designed election technology.
We invite you to read the complete article here.
The Huffington Post UK published an op-ed authored by Mark Malloch-Brown, Chairman of Smartmatic.
In the piece, he writes about the recent general elections in the UK, stressing the need to modernise voting processes, and points at technology as the perfect tool to improve election administration and to increase participation.
You can read the complete piece here.
London, 24 April 2015.- Smartmatic’s Chairman Lord Mark Malloch-Brown was interviewed on Sky News about the benefits of adopting voting technologies.
Lord Malloch-Brown explained to Martin Stanford on Sky News Digital View the different types of electronic voting (Remote and in-person voting), how these technologies work, and cited examples of countries such as Estonia, The Philippines and Brazil, where these technologies have been implemented with great success.
When asked if the United Kingdom could have this technology in five years, the Chairman of Smartmatic said that “it is absolutely up to politicians”, adding that implementing voting technology in the UK could potentially revive democracy, increase turnout, and get people more excited and participative.
Watch the complete interview here:
![[The Huffington Post UK] If we are going to engage young people in our country’s democratic dialogue we need to modernise our voting system, not just our voting laws](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/huffington-post.jpg)
Caracas, Venezuela, December 7, 2015 – Following Venezuela’s recent elections, Smartmatic announced today that its secure automated voting platform guaranteed the flawless results of the nation’s Parliamentary vote. The London-based voting technology provider has serviced Venezuela’s last 14 national elections.![[GlobeScan] GlobeScan Dialogues: An interview with Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, Chairman, SGO Corporation](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Globe_.png)
London, 2 December 2015.- A few days ago, GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller sat with SGO Chairman Lord Mark Malloch-Brown for an interview.![[City AM] The future of democracy must be digital](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cityam_01.JPG)
London, 28 October 2015.- “This year’s General Election [UK, 2015] revealed stubbornly low voter turnout at just less than two-thirds of the eligible public with almost 20 per cent of voters opting for the suspect but convenient opportunity to vote by post (a trend that has increased at each election cycle). This should be proof enough that our system is failing our democracy”. ![[NetxGov] Why America Needs New Voting Technology](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/nextgov_logo.png){kind=logo}
![[FindBiometrics] Smartmatic: The Future of Elections is Digital](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/FindBiometrics-Smartmatic.jpg)
![[Financial Times] Smartmatic – Revolutionising the ballot box](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/FinancialTimes_logo.png){kind=logo}
“The case for election technology” is the title of an article by Smartmatic’s CEO and founder, Antonio Mugica. We invite you to read it and learn the philosophy behind the solutions we create to strengthen democracy.![[The Huffington Post UK] The UK’s Voting System Is Failing Our Democracy, It’s Time to Modernise](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/huffington-post_01.jpg)
The Huffington Post UK published an op-ed authored by Mark Malloch-Brown, Chairman of Smartmatic.![[Sky News] Mark Malloch-Brown discusses online voting in the United Kingdom](https://sgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Sky_News.png)
London, 24 April 2015.- Smartmatic’s Chairman Lord Mark Malloch-Brown was interviewed on Sky News about the benefits of adopting voting technologies.