Why you should be able to vote on your phone | Bradley Tusk - TED Talks Daily

Summary

Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily Episode: Why You Should Be Able to Vote on Your Phone
Speaker: Bradley Tusk
Release Date: July 15, 2025

Introduction

In this compelling TED Talk, Bradley Tusk, a renowned venture capitalist and political strategist, presents a visionary argument for enabling mobile voting. Tusk contends that allowing secure and accessible voting via smartphones could revolutionize democratic participation, significantly increase voter turnout, and restore trust and functionality in democratic systems.

The Current State of Voting and Political Representation

Tusk begins by highlighting the paradox of high voter turnout in national elections juxtaposed with remarkably low participation in local primaries. Using the 2023 New York City Council primaries as an example, he points out that a city of 8.5 million residents registered to vote, yet only 7.2% turned out for the city council primaries. This low engagement allows extreme factions and special interests to dominate elections, often sidelining the moderate majority whose participation is crucial for balanced governance.

Notable Quote:
"Virtually every politician makes every decision solely based on winning the next election and nothing else." [04:35]

The Problem with Gerrymandering and Low Turnout

Tusk explains how gerrymandering exacerbates political polarization by manipulating legislative districts to favor one party, making primary elections the decisive contests. This system marginalizes the median voter and incentivizes politicians to cater to extreme views to secure their positions, leading to governmental dysfunction and heightened partisanship.

Key Points:

Gerrymandering: Distorts representative democracy by creating 'safe' districts where only party primaries matter.
Low Turnout Primaries: Extremist candidates flourish in elections with minimal voter participation.
Impact on Policy: Policymakers prioritize extreme positions over centrist, widely-supported solutions, hindering effective governance.

The Potential of Mobile Voting

Tusk proposes mobile voting as a transformative solution to these systemic issues. Drawing parallels to how citizens already manage banking, healthcare, and other essential services on their phones, he envisions voting becoming equally accessible. By simplifying the voting process and making it more convenient, mobile voting could engage a broader demographic, particularly the middle-ground voters who are currently disengaged.

Notable Quote:
"We have to make it possible for them to move back to the middle. And the only way to do that is to get a lot more people voting." [08:45]

The Mobile Voting Project

In 2017, Tusk spearheaded the Mobile Voting Project, collaborating with election officials in seven states to pilot mobile voting for military personnel and individuals with disabilities. These initial trials saw a significant increase in participation, with Denver reporting a tripling of voter turnout and 100% voter approval for the mobile voting method.

Key Components of Mobile Voting:

User Verification: Multi-factor authentication, including facial recognition matched against government IDs, ensures voter identity.
Ballot Security: Votes are encrypted, anonymized, and tracked through a secure process akin to FedEx package tracking.
Transparency: The open-source nature of the voting code allows for public auditing and verification, enhancing trust in the system.
Dual System Integration: Mobile voting serves as an additional voting option alongside traditional mail and in-person voting.

Notable Quote:
"The underlying code itself is open source, which means that anyone can audit it, anyone can verify it, it's totally transparent." [12:50]

Overcoming Political Resistance

Despite the promising outcomes of the pilot projects, Tusk acknowledges the significant resistance from entrenched political interests wary of increasing voter accessibility. He emphasizes that meaningful change requires collective action from citizens to pressure political leaders to adopt mobile voting technologies.

Key Strategies:

Grassroots Mobilization: Encouraging widespread public demand for mobile voting.
Legislative Advocacy: Pushing for policies that support the adoption of secure mobile voting systems.
Public Awareness: Educating voters about the benefits and security measures of mobile voting to build trust and acceptance.

Notable Quote:
"Every major right that has ever been won... has only happened because enough people stood up loud enough and long enough and demanded their rights." [13:45]

Future Prospects and Vision

Tusk envisions a future where mobile voting is seamlessly integrated into the democratic process worldwide. He suggests that beyond voting, mobile platforms could facilitate voter registration, provide nonpartisan information about candidates, and offer real-time updates on ballot status, thereby further democratizing and simplifying civic participation.

Key Innovations:

Voter Registration on Mobile: Streamlining the registration process directly through smartphones.
Informative Tools: Providing unbiased information to help voters make informed decisions.
Real-Time Tracking: Allowing voters to monitor their ballot's journey through the electoral system.

Notable Quote:
"We can take power away from the extremes. We can end the dysfunction and polarization that plagues our society today." [14:50]

Conclusion

Bradley Tusk's talk presents a compelling case for mobile voting as a means to rejuvenate democracy by making voting more accessible, secure, and transparent. By leveraging technology, he believes that democratic participation can be significantly enhanced, ensuring that political representation more accurately reflects the will of the broader population rather than a vocal minority. Tusk calls for collective action to implement these changes, highlighting the transformative potential of mobile voting to restore trust and functionality in democratic institutions.

Closing Quote:
"We can do all of this in the next 10 years. We can do it with mobile voting. Thank you." [15:20]

Final Thoughts

Bradley Tusk's insightful presentation underscores the critical intersection of technology and democracy. As societies continue to evolve, embracing innovative solutions like mobile voting could be pivotal in addressing longstanding democratic challenges and fostering a more inclusive and representative political landscape.

Transcript

Elise Hu (0:07)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Voting is a fundamental right in this country, and it's something that should be easy to do. So a question I've always had is, is there a world in which we could vote from our phones? Venture capitalist and political strategist Bradley Tusk makes the case that secure, accessible phone voting is possible and would be a huge step forward to dramatically increase turnout and restore function, representation and trust in democracy. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Each Apple product, like the iPhone 16, is thoughtfully designed by skilled designers. The titanium Apple Card is no different. It's laser etched, has no numbers numbers and it earns you daily cash on everything you buy, including 3% back on everything at Apple. Apply for Apple Card on your iPhone in minutes, subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more@applecard.com this episode is sponsored by McDonald's. Okay, confession time. I love a good comeback story, especially when it's delicious and totally unexpected. Back in 2006, McDonald's released the snack Wrap and it quickly became the go to bite portable, crunchy, juicy perfection. Then it vanished. Gone. Poof. But the fans like me. Oh, they never gave up. I'm talking nine years of petitions, Facebook groups, memes, international snack wrap scouting missions. People built entire identities around this thing. It was intense in the best way. And now it's back. Yes, really. Thanks to relentless sauce loving dedication, McDonald's brought back the Snack Wrap. Think crispy, juicy white meat, shredded lettuce, melty cheese, all hugged in a soft tortilla and drizzled with ranch or your pick of sauces. It was never supposed to return, but the fans made it happen. Because sometimes passion wins. And sometimes it tastes like a snack wrap. Try the snack wrap that broke the Internet at a McDonald's near you. This episode is sponsored by Dell introducing the new Dell AI PC. Powered by the Intel Core Ultra processor. It's not just an AI computer, it's a computer built for AI. That means it's built to help do your busy work for you so you can fast forward through editing images, designing presentations, generating code, debugging code, running lots of apps without lag, creating live translations and captions, summarizing meeting notes, extending battery life, enhancing security, finding that file you are looking for, managing your schedule, meeting your deadlines, responding to Jim's long emails, leaving all the time in the world for more you time and for the things you actually want to do, no offense, Jim, get A new Dell AI PC starting at 699.99@dell.com AI PC how those ahead? Stay ahead.

Bradley Tusk (3:12)

So let me ask you a question. How many of you do your banking, your healthcare on your phones? Right? Of course you do. How about like your love life, your entertainment, travel planning, all that kind of stuff, Right? How many of you vote on your phones? That's the problem. So I spent the first 15 years of my career working in US government and politics. City government, state government, federal government, you name it, I saw it from pretty much every angle. And the main thing that I took away from it really more than anything else is why politicians make the decisions they make. Is it based on what they believe in? No. Is it what's best for their city or their state or their country? Not really. How about what's best for their constituents specifically? Not even that. It's actually a lot simpler. Virtually every politician makes every decision solely based on winning the next election and nothing else. And that's true for the next election and then the next election after that. And it's a problem in democracies all over the world, but it's especially pervasive in the United States because we have this corrupt practice known as gerrymandering. And what that allows the two political parties to do is divvy up all the legislative districts so that as a result, the only election that ever really matters is the party primary. Now, we had a big election last fall, you guys might have heard something about it. And in that election, about two thirds of Americans voted. But that was for precedent. I live in New York City. In 2023 we had city council primaries, turnout was 7.2%. So I don't know if you guys have ever been to New York, but if you have, you will know we are not a shy people. And yet in this city of 8.5 million highly opinionated people, you could win a council seat with just 8,000 votes. And the same thing is true in state legislative races, congressional, mayoral, you name it. And it's true everywhere. So who are those voters? They're typically the far right or the far left or special interests that know how to move money and votes. In lower turnout elections, they dictate not only who wins office, but then what happens once they're in office. And that gets us one of two types of government. Either the chaos and dysfunction that we call Washington D.C. or totally one sided governments who, whether it's the state of Texas on the Right. Or the city of San Francisco on the left. And if we were truly, hopelessly divided, if we just couldn't agree on any issue, that'd be one thing. But we're not. Most people agree on the solutions to most issues, whether it's education or health care or climate or taxes or. Let's take guns as an example. The vast majority of Americans would say that we should neither confiscate everyone's guns, but nor should it be easy to walk into a store and walk out with an assault rifle. But the problem is those Americans, the people in the center, the people in the middle, they don't vote in primaries. So politicians ignore their views and cater only to the extremes. And when the next school shooting happens, and it will happen, all of us are going to bang our heads against the wall and say, why can't our politicians just do the right thing for once? Why? I'll tell you why. Because they're held hostage by the extremes. They're stuck. We have to free them from their clutches. We have to make it possible for them to move back to the middle. And the only way to do that is to get a lot more people voting. And the only way to do that is to meet the people where they are on their phones. About a decade or so ago, I helped run a lot of the campaigns around the US to legalize Uber. And I know that now when you guys think of Uber, it's this giant corporation. But back then, we were a tiny little tech startup, and Taxi was this big, politically powerful industry who really didn't like us. And we knew we couldn't outmuscle them. And so instead, we turned to the people. And by making it possible for our customers to tell their elected officials, hey, I like this Uber thing. Please leave it alone. We were able to mobilize millions of people through the app to advocate on our behalf. And when mayors and city council members started hearing from thousands of their constituents, that's exactly what they did. They left Uber alone. It's how we wanted basically every market in the country. And while this was happening, I just remember sitting there thinking, you know, God bless these people. They're making my job a lot easier. But my guess is they don't know who their city council member is. They don't vote in state senate primaries. And, you know, why would they? They're busy. They have kids, they have jobs, they have lives. But when we made it really easy, when we let people reach their politicians directly from their phones, everything changed. So what if we could vote this way? So in 2017, we created the Mobile Voting Project. And the first thing we did was work with election officials in seven states, red and blue, where either deployed military or people with disabilities were able to vote in real elections on their phones. Soldiers from West Virginia stationed in Afghanistan, people who are blind. In Denver. In one election in Seattle, we let everyone participate. And after doing it for two years in a row, turnout tripled. Denver did a poll of those who participated in their election, and 100%. So every single respondent said, yeah, I like pressing a button better than having to go somewhere shocking, right? In other big news, water is wet and ice cream tastes good. But that was for specific groups of voters. And we wanted everyone to be able to vote securely on their phones. So four years ago, we started building our own mobile voting technology. We're almost done. We're going to finish it this summer, and when we do, it's going to be free and open source to any government in the world that wants to use it it. And to be clear, this is just an additional way to vote. If you like voting by mail, vote by mail. If you like voting in person, great, do that. Some people really like the ceremony that comes with going somewhere and waiting in line and all of that. And if that happens to be you, knock yourself out. But based on turnout, that's not most of you. So let's give people another option. So, as I mentioned before, and you can probably tell from my accent, I'm from New York. So I'm going to use that as the example for how it works. I go on the App Store and I download the New York City Board of Elections app, and the first thing they do is say, okay, is Bradley really a registered voter here in New York City? I put in my address. Fine. Next thing is multi factor Authentication. So you know how, like, when you forget your Google password, they send you a code and you put it back into the app? Same thing here. Then we take a scan of your face, match that up against your government id, and at this point, we've fully established. Okay, Bradley is really Bradley. Ballot pops up on my screen. And the ballot itself is simple and easy to use. And I go through it. I take my time, no rush. Whenever I'm ready, I hit submit. And when I hit submit, three things happen. First, first, my ballot is encrypted. Second, it's anonymized. Third, I get a tracking code, like if it were a FedEx package, so I can track the progress of my ballot all the way through the process. Then it goes back to the New York City Board of Elections and they air gap it, which means they take it offline. And once my ballot is no longer connected to the Internet, then they decrypt it. A paper copy is printed out that gets mixed in with all of the other ballots. I know where my ballot stands because I can see from the tracking code that it was received, tabulated, printed and so on. And the underlying code itself is open source, which means that anyone can audit it, anyone can verify it, it's totally transparent. To me, that's a lot more secure than the way we vote right now. And we've already built it, we've already paid for it, and we're giving it away to anyone who wants to use it for free. And with a little more work, I think we could do even more. We could register people to vote on the Act. We could give voters nonpartisan information about candidates or ballot measures so you actually know what you're voting on. And versions of this already do exist. Mobile voting, in a way, exists in Estonia. They use it in party elections in the uk. Some municipalities here in Canada use it, but not in the US and not in most democracies. And that's where the hard part really kicks in, getting politicians to let us use our phones to vote in elections. Because in my experience, people in power don't like making it easier for other people to gain power. And that's. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I'm here. Because they're not just going to do it if I ask nicely. They're not just going to do it if I snarl at the Libertarians on X or at the Liberals on Blue sky, they're only going to do it if you make it happen. If we all make it happen. And we can. Every major right that has ever been won anywhere, the right to vote, the Civil Rights act, the Americans with Disabilities act, same sex marriage, anything has only happened because enough people stood up loud enough and long enough and demanded their rights. And eventually the status quo had to give in. And we can do that here, too. We can make voting easier and a lot more secure. We can bring regular people back into the process. We can take power away from the extremes. We can end the dysfunction and polarization that plagues our society today. We can give our politicians the COVID and the courage they need to work together and to finally, finally get things done. We can do all of this in the next 10 years. We can do it with mobile voting. Thank you.