Theres a reason transactions over the Internet continue to boom: Theyre easy. And private.
Or at least in theory.
Which is why Brian McClendon, a co-founder of Google Earth and Google Maps, has had such success with KSVotes.org, his online voter registration site. In only a years time more than 23,400 Kansans have registered to vote there, with the highest percentage being 18- to 24-year-olds.
Which is good, McClendon said. Now we just need to get them to vote.
McClendon has coupled his IT expertise and passion for democracy in his bid for Kansas Secretary of State, running as a Democrat.
Always a Democrat? asks this reporter.
No, not always. I was a Dole Republican as a youth, then an Independent for several years before just recently becoming a Democrat.
WE TESTED McClendons claim that registered voters can sign up for a ballot on KSVotes.org in less than 3 minutes. Sure enough, it was a breeze. And in less than 24 hours the ballot arrived in the mail, allowing plenty of time to mull the options over in the comfort, and privacy, of home.
POLITICS was never on McClendons front burner. First, he pursued a successful career in software development and management. After living in the fast lane in Californias Silicon Valley, McClendon moved home to Kansas in 2016 where he now teaches and advises on big data and machine-learning research at his alma mater, the University of Kansas, and is a frequent lecturer on the importance of STEM science, technology, engineering and math curriculums.
Its from his expertise with information systems that piqued McClendons interest in the Secretary of States office and its responsibility to ensure accurate voting results and voters personal data.
The states voting system is woefully inadequate, McClendon asserts, making it susceptible to rogue hackers, including those from Russia, Iran and North Korea.
McClendon also targets the states Crosscheck program that was designed to track the whereabouts of registered voters who have since moved out of state, but lacks adequate parameters.
Kansas had a good idea, but failed in its implementation, causing a high number of false-positives, where peoples names frequently match and are not filtered by requiring middle names or initials, birth dates, etc.
Its a terrible algorithm, he said.
Kansas has added 25 states to the program, to further magnify its liability when things go wrong.
Theyre creating all of these false matches. You get this long list of suspected names, and states dont know what to do with them. Most just throw them in the trash.
The hazard for Kansas is that as manager of the program, it is liable for security breaches. Florida, for example, recently released the private information on 945 Kansas residents flagged by Crosscheck in response to a public records request by an individual.
In addition, the mechanism used by each state to upload voter information to Crosscheck is deeply insecure, McClendon said. That voter data is out in the wild.
McClendon said the problems with Crosscheck can and should be remedied and fast.
