SMART is an acronym

SMART Elections is an innovative, nonpartisan project. We serve U.S. voters, advocates, election officials and the general public. 

We are transforming U.S. elections by improving security, providing public oversight, and advocating for voting rights, accessibility, accuracy and transparency.  We want the public to have full confidence in election results. 

Problems with our elections have been festering for years, but are not well understood.

• The core of our #ElectionProtection platform is our innovative, fun non-partisan forum that educates the public and officials about ongoing issues with U.S. elections. We focus on actionable improvements that experts recommend. The forums have reached tens of thousands of viewers.  
•  In the U.S. all elections are local, so we work locally to educate, connect, and empower communities to improve their elections. 
• We work closely with the disability rights community. The forums have ASL interpreters courtesy of Sign Language Connection (SLC) at the Center for Disability Rights. Closed Captioning is available live on Facebook, and on the YouTube replay. 

SMART Elections is building bridges with groups across the political and issue spectrum.

• Collaboration is the key to sparking a successful transpartisan movement to improve U.S. elections.

We teach advocates and non-partisan poll watchers best practices to protect and monitor elections, using publicly available data. 

• The Brooklyn Transparency Pilot Project compared the number of voters who signed in with the number of ballots scanned in a few select polling locations in Brooklyn. We found one location, that seemed to have almost 700 more ballots scanned than voters. We are following up on that information and expanding the program. After our report, the NYS Board of Elections Co-Chair reached out to us to collaborate on a new poll watcher program. When the public gets involved in oversight of elections, we can improve elections and raise public confidence.

1. Voting rights (ending voter suppression)
2. Disability rights (access for voters)
3. Anti-corruption (getting money out of politics)
4. Fair Redistricting (ending gerrymandering)
5. National Popular Vote (ending the Electoral College)
6. Ranked Choice Voting
7. Security

If security is not addressed - and votes are not counted accurately - then all other reforms are at risk. 

The equipment that we vote on. Most voting machines in use in the United States currently use proprietary software and have often been shown to have serious security vulnerabilities in both their design and their execution.

Security experts recommend hand-marked paper ballots for voters who are able to mark by hand. For voters unable to mark by hand, or who prefer to use an assistive device, experts recommend ballot-marking devices that do not tabulate and have other secure design requirements.  We advocate for these types of systems to be used in all jurisdictions. 

We oppose these systems on the basis of security research by respected academics and experts: 

• Hybrid Voting Systems that combine printing & tabulating of ballots
• Votes encoded in barcodes
• Ballots printed on thermal paper
• Touchscreen Voting Machines for all voters, instead of just voters who need them. 

The chain of custody of all ballots, voting systems, and equipment and media used to count votes must be guarded carefully by multiple parties at all times. These protocols need to be established with legislation and reinforced through education and best practices.  

Strong public oversight, robust audits and public access to all documentation are needed to confirm that election results are correct and for the public to have confidence in them. These protocols need to be established with legislation and reinforced through education and best practices 

The rules that govern our electoral process. This includes:

• Federal and state legislation 
• Agencies that establish and enforce rules and regulations for elections, like the Election Assistance Commission and Boards of Elections, which need to be run by qualified staff that are free from conflicts of interest. 

These rules control and influence many of the issues SMART Elections is working to improve.