Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (VTP)

The Voting Technology Project is a joint venture by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is affiliated with the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL). ^{2 3}

Background

The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project is an interdisciplinary academic research group that assesses voting systems. It was founded in December 2000 by Caltech president David Baltimore and MIT president Charles Vest to “prevent a recurrence of the problems that threatened the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election,” specifically the “hanging chads” controversy in the state of Florida that led to the election of President George W. Bush. ^{2 4 5}

Activities

The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project employs engineers to analyze the functioning of voting machines and social scientists to research and measure the effects of electoral system reforms on voting patterns. Since its founding, it has hosted and funded dozens of professors, visiting academics, policy experts, and students, and has published countless articles and books on the topics of electoral systems, machines, and voter behavior. ^{1 2}

In 2021, VTP faculty and collaborating researchers published a proposal to create a “convergence accelerator” at the National Science Foundation (NSF) that would allocate federal funds to technologists and administrators who would be tasked with continuously adjusting the U.S. election system to meet alleged challenges. The report that accompanied the proposal outlined various technologies that would make elections more “accessible” and several ways to change the way states “manage eligibility,” “record and tabulate votes,” and “tabulate votes.” ^{6 7}

As of 2025, VTP faculty and students were said to be working in the following areas: “Developing better voting systems standards and testing practices,” “Studying and developing novel and improved post-election auditing procedures,” “Examining ways to make the process of voter registration more secure and more accessible,” and “Improving voting technologies.” ²

Affiliations

As of 2025, the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project was listed as an official affiliate of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL), an election and polling statistics center housed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MEDSL purports to apply “scientific principles” to the study of how elections are administered in the United States and aims to “improve the democratic experience” for American voters. MEDSL’s research areas tend to favor a left-leaning narrative of election reform, focusing on subjects such as “mail-in balloting,” “same-day registration,” and “redistricting.” ^{3 8}

Leadership

As of 2025, the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology project was primarily staffed by R. Michael Alvarez, Stephen Ansolabehere, Jonathan N. Katz, Ronald L. Rivest, and Charles Stewart III. ²