Overseas Democrats going to polls electronically

On Super Tuesday, voters in Beijing will cast ballots for the U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate of their choice.

Members of Democrats Abroad in China will be eligible, along with fellow party members in other countries outside the United States, to participate in the first-ever Democratic Global Presidential Primary, a party initiative to increase voting options for Democrats living overseas, including e-voting.

"Americans living abroad are a constituency of their own, and we should have a voice of our own. We have different issues, and different takes on issues. That at least one party has recognized that it is its own constituency is a step forward," said David Wolf, a native Californian who runs a technology consulting firm in the Chinese capital.

"The Democratic race is pretty darn exciting right now, so I guess everyone is just anxious to participate. We're also getting a lot of new members. A lot of people are signing up. And the online voting is new," said Claire Taylor, vice chair of Democrats Abroad in the Netherlands. Taylor estimated that the group's local membership increased 30 percent, thanks to the Global Presidential Primary.

In the United States, Feb. 5 will see primaries in 17 states, six caucuses, and a state convention on what's known as "Super Tuesday" due to the large number of states participating and the number of delegates at stake. The Global Presidential Primary allows overseas voters to vote from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12.

At stake are 14 delegates, who will join eight "super-delegates" chosen at Democrats Abroad regional caucuses later in the year, all of whom will then participate in the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August. That makes the overseas constituency similar in size to the number of Democratic delegates in Nevada, which has 25.

Behind the electronic voting option is Everyone Counts in San Diego. Founded in Melbourne, Australia, it is "a software company with a mission to make democracy more transparent," according to CEO Lori Steele. Its two largest elections to date were a 4 million voter mock election in the United States, and a local authority election in the United Kingdom with 160,000 voters. Steele expects "tens of thousands" to participate in Tuesday's Global Presidential Primary.

In order to facilitate outside auditing and transparency, Everyone Counts' software is open source. The main components of the software are security, to guarantee encryption during the voting process; verification, to ensure that only the authorized voter is casting the ballot and then is not permitted to vote again using another method, and also to verify the total votes cast and the results; and accounting, to allow counting, auditing, and certification of results by the appropriate election board. For the Global Presidential Primary, voting will be supported on about 20 different browsers, Steele said.