Nevada has used the “Effective Absentee System for Elections” (EASE) system to allow military and overseas voters to vote electronically for roughly the past decade. Since the 2020 election, the state has opened the EASE system to voters who are disabled or live on an Indian reservation, allowing them to vote online. But when asked how officials ensure the system is only used by eligible voters, the office of Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar could only point to each voter’s word.
Nevada’s EASE system is “an online application that seamlessly integrates voter registration and electronic ballot delivery and marking.” EASE is described as “the first entirely online application, from registration to requesting a ballot to ballot delivery to a ballot marking system using a digital/electronic signature,” according to the secretary of state’s website.
Voters who are registered with EASE can use an electronic image that is already on file with the county or state to “mark a digital image of their ballot and return their ballot submission electronically, negating the requirement of printing and signing the ballot before returning it,” according to the secretary of state’s website. Gabriel Di Chiara, the secretary of state’s chief deputy, said the program “is entirely secure,” according to Nevada Current.
But it appears the system has no safeguards in place — aside from an honor system — to ensure that EASE users are actually eligible for the system. So how does the state ensure that only eligible voters can use a system
