Over the years, various VTP reports and publications have discussed the need for a more vibrant and innovative voting systems industry (for a recent example, see the 2012 VTP report, Voting: What Has Changed, What Hasn’t, and What Needs Improvement). In fact, we will be discussing this in my undergraduate elections class at Caltech this week.

It was interesting to see in the news this morning that Scytl, one of the few voting systems companies, is reporting that they are receiving a $40 million investment from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. That’s a pretty significant investment, at a time when there will be increasing demand for voting systems and technologies throughout the world.