For the first time, expatriate Democrats can cast their ballots on the Internet in a presidential primary for people living outside the United States. From February 5th to the 12th, an official arm of the Democratic Party called "Democrats Abroad", will host the very first global primary completely online.
The winner of this global presidential primary will earn 22 delegates at the Democratic National Convention. 22 delegates is more than many of the early states in the primary process.
For Democrats Abroad, "the online voting option provides a new alternative to the usual process of voting from overseas, a system made difficult by complicated voter registration paperwork, early deadlines and unreliable foreign mail service".
Accord to Lindsey Reynolds, executive Director of Democrats Abroad, "the online system is incredibly secure. That was one of our biggest goals".
Everyone Counts Inc., the San Diego-based company running the online election, has been building elections software for a decade, running the British Labor Party's online voting since 2000 and other British elections since 2003, chief executive officer Lori Steele said.
Some 6 million Americans living abroad are eligible to vote in U.S. elections, but only a fraction do so. Until recently, the only option was to mail absentee request forms to the last U.S. county of residence, then wait in hopes that shaky mail systems would deliver the ballots in time to vote. The system is so unreliable that of 992.034 ballots requested from overseas for the 2006 general election, only 330.000 were cast or counted, and 70 % of those not counted were returned to elections officials as undeliverable, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found.
