Open Source Voting Machine Reborn After 6-Year War With IRS
Then the revolution stalled. The Open Source Digital Voting Foundation spent the next four years in a kind of government-induced limbo as the Internal Revenue Service delayed processing of its application for nonprofit status. That delay cost the operation an untold amount of grant and donation dollars, and though the project has produced some software, it still hasn’t begun work on important things like ballot-counting and tabulation devices and accessible voting machines.
We’re happy about our deserved designation, and yet we are so freaking angry at the IRS for what they made us go through and the damage they’ve caused us.’— Gregory Miller
The delay is part of a much larger issue swirling around the IRS. This spring, an Inspector General report revealed that the agency was closely scrutinizing tax-exempt applications from conservative groups, many affiliated with the Tea Party, and the admission drew complaints nationwide. But the Tea Party is hardly the only organization affected. Progressive groups, health care data exchanges, and medical marijuana growers were cited by the IRS — and so were many open source software projects, including the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.
The good news is the Foundation has emerged from IRS limbo. Two weeks ago, the IRS finally approved its application, ending a six-and-a-half-year review, during which the project filed hundreds of pages of documents and responses to agency interrogatories. “We’re happy about our deserved designation,” Miller says, “and yet we are so freaking angry at the IRS for what they made us go through and the damage they’ve caused us.”
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