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Kent Native Works to Make Online Voting a Reality

Pete Martin founded Votem in 2014.
Votem.com
Pete Martin founded Votem in 2014.

A Kent-native is trying to make voting more fair and accessible. Pete Martin is the founder of Votem. It’s a mobile app that uses Blockchain technology, to let voters securely fill out ballots and cast their votes directly from a smart phone. 

“Each vote then goes into a series of servers that then mathematically validate that it’s a legitimate transaction and that you’re a verified voter. Once this consensus across all these different servers is reached, then and only then is it written to the digital ballot box and it’s chained to the votes before it.” Martin says the biggest reason why people don’t vote is because they can’t make it to the polling place. He is working with secretaries of state across the nation to allow for this technology to be used in the mainstream.  This November, members of the military from Montana and Washington, D.C. who are serving overseas will be able to cast their vote through Votem. 

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Emma Keating is a junior journalism major with a minor in political science. Between working for the Kent Stater, TV2 and Cleveland Magazine, she has experience in newspaper, magazine, multimedia and broadcast journalism, though writing will always be her one true love. Keating hopes to use her journalism to give a voice to the voiceless in her future career, eventually moving to Washington, D.C.