Paul Allen
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a supporter of President Obama, is investing $40 million in Scytl, the Spain-based firm that in January 2012 acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States.
Allen made the investment via his Vulcan Capital, the investment management firm that oversees his multi-billion dollar portfolio.
Abhishek Agrawal, Vulcan Capital’s managing director, told the Wall Street Journal’s blog he expects countries to eventually become comfortable with digital-only elections.
“This is a very powerful global trend,” Agrawal added. “There is a pathway toward gradual modernization.”
Allen has donated to both Democrats and Republicans, including to the campaigns of Democratic Reps. Norm Dicks and Dennis Heck, both from Washington state, where Allen owns the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks National Football League team.
One of Allen’s philanthropic organizations, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, earmarked a $60-million annual donation to support Obama’s initiative to map the activity of every neuron in the human brain.
In April 2013, Obama announced his plan, the BRAIN Initiative, or the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative.
Another of Allen’s charitable groups, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, donated a total of $250,000 to the immigration-reform advocacy group Centro de la Raza.
The same foundation provided $450,000 to the Urban Institute.
The supposedly “nonpartisan” Urban Institute’s employees have a record of donating nearly 100 percent of their political contributions to Democrats. Officially, the Urban Institute advocates for socialized medicine, carbon taxes and amnesty for illegal aliens.
UI’s president, Sarah Rosen Wartell, is the co-founder of the Center for American Progress, widely considered ground zero for the development of many of the Obama administration’s progressive policies. CAP’s other founder, John Podesta, currently serves as White House counselor.
Scytl, meanwhile, is advancing worldwide. WND reported yesterday an entire municipality in Canada will utilize online-only voting in the next election, with all balloting to be run via Scytl.
The U.S. may not be far from Internet voting. In January, President Obama’s special commission on election reform recommended future electronic voting, even suggesting tablet computers, such as iPads, be used to cast votes, as WND exclusively reported.
The concept of electronic voting is already being tested.
WND reported in 2012 that Scytl announced the successful implementation of technology that allows ballots to be cast using Google and Apple smartphones and tablet computers.
With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott.