Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Institute

OSET Institute supports the far-left Black Lives Matter movement, ² has referred to the hand counting of paper ballots as a “repository for the fear of technology,” ³ and expressed the view that the critical race theory-influenced concept of systemic racism pervades many aspects of voting and election administration. ⁴

In 2021, OSET Institute received more than $1 million ⁵ of a $10 million grant from Tusk Philanthropies to support the development of internet-based voting technologies. ⁶

History and Leadership

Open Source Election Technology Institute (OSET Institute) was originally founded as the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation by Gregory Miller and E. John Sebes in November 2006. ⁷ In 2013, the organization was given tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). ⁸

Miller is active with the American Bar Association on technology law and public policy issues. He is also a member of the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, a sustaining member of the Internet Society, and was a member of the San Francisco Voting Systems Task Force from 2010 to 2012. ⁷

OSET Institute’s board of directors includes representatives from the left-leaning John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Cambridge Global Advisors, Redhat, Tipping Point Partners, American Enterprise Institute, Democracy Labs Co-Founder Deepak Puri, IBM Corporation, Rock the Vote, and others. ⁷

OSET Institute is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and has other operations in San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon; Boston, Massachusetts; Brooklyn, New York; and Arlington, Virginia. ⁹

Activities and Funding

Open Source Election Technology Institute is a left-leaning technology research and development institute that works with election officials across the country in an effort to address what it identifies as challenges of election technology infrastructure and election technology security. OSET Institute also supports the creation of more publicly available election technology to increase confidence in elections ¹ and provides cybersecurity advisory and public policy advisory services. ¹⁰

OSET Institute supports a “public technology option” ¹⁰ for voting and its technology projects include an absentee ballot marking project, third-party voter registration, canvassing tools for voter registration services at events, ¹¹ and technological support for internet voting. ¹² The institute publishes a quarterly paper on election systems called “The Tabulator” ¹¹ and operates the Dead Men Don’t Vote podcast. ¹³

OSET Institute supports the far-left Black Lives Matter movement ² and has referred to the hand counting of paper ballots as a “repository for the fear of technology.” ³ OSET Institute also claims that “at least one foreign state adversary launched successful attacks on our election processes and technology” during the 2016 election. ¹⁴

The institute has argued that minority groups face disproportionate difficulties in voting. OSET Institute is critical of both voter ID laws and felony disenfranchisement. The organization also claims that African-American voters are disproportionately disenfranchised and that the critical race theory-influenced concept of systemic racism pervades many aspects of voting and election administration. ⁴

In 2022, OSET Institute launched a new grant for overseas military voters and voters with disabilities with grant funding from Tusk Philanthropies  ¹⁵ and participated in the Copenhagen Democracy Summit. ¹⁶

In 2020, OSET Institute released a briefing on its views regarding the critical race theory-influenced concept of “systemic racism” in United States elections. In this briefing, OSET said that “all voters cannot matter until Black voters matter” and that “the goal of trustworthy elections will not be fully achieved until Black voters can trust the vote.” ⁴

Also in 2020, OSET Institute supported the integration of state voter registration services and integrated the voter registration system of left-of-center Rock The Vote with Michigan’s background system to support third-party online voter registration. ¹⁷

Internet Voting

Open Source Election Technology Institute supports internet-based voting. In 2021, OSET Institute received at least $1 million ⁵ of a $10 million grant from Tusk Philanthropies to support internet voting technologies. As a part of this grant, OSET Institute was tasked with designing a public-facing ballot-marking application while the grant’s other recipient, Dutch firm Assembly Voting, will design the technology that will transmit electronic ballots from a phone or electronic device to election officials. ⁶ The D.C. Council has expressed interest in bringing this mobile voting platform to the District of Columbia. ¹²

TrustTheVote

Open Source Election Technology Institute’s “flagship effort” to restore trust in elections is the TrustTheVote Project. ¹⁸ As a part of this project, OSET Institute is working on developing voter service technology such as ElectOS. The institute believes this project will help create what it calls more verifiable, accurate, secure, and transparent electronic voting technology that can be tailored to local jurisdictions’ needs as finished voting systems. ¹⁹

Funding

Open Source Election Technology Institute receives funding from individual donations and grants. ²⁰

In 2021, OSET Institute received more than $1,000,000 from Tusk Philanthropies to support its internet voting project. ⁵ OSET Institute has also received support from the left-leaning John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the Frost Foundation, and the James H. Clarke Foundation. ²¹

OSET Institute also receives corporate support from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide cloud deployment capabilities. ¹⁰