Jurisdictions: many laws, layered districts, no universal approval

In plain words

Where you live decides a lot about how you vote: who runs the election, what is on your ballot, what machines are used, and whether you can vote by mail or online.

Even in one country, these rules can differ from state to state. And each person lives in several districts at once, such as a city, a school district, a county, and a state, each with its own contests and measures.

That is why My Vote Forward never claims to be "approved" or "certified" in general. A system that meets one place's rules may break another's. Any real use would need permission and testing in each place, under that place's laws.

Defined terms

• Jurisdiction. A place with its own legal authority over some matter, such as a country, state, canton, county, or city. See the glossary.
• Election authority. The body legally responsible for running an election and publishing its results in a jurisdiction.
• Layered (overlapping) districts. Separate geographic units for different offices and measures that overlap the same household, so two neighbors can have different ballots.
• Ballot style. The specific set of contests and measures presented to a voter, determined by the districts they live in.
• Certification or approval. A formal decision by a specific authority that a specific system version meets a specific standard for use in that authority's elections.
• Localization. Adapting language, formats, legal references, calendars, and official links to a jurisdiction. Translation alone is not localization.

Evidence

International law sets principles, not one system

Article 25 of the ICCPR guarantees the right to vote "at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot" ¹. General Comment 25 adds that "the Covenant does not impose any particular electoral system," while any system "must be compatible with the rights protected by article 25" ². Shared principles, then, coexist with very different institutions.

United States: states run elections, standards are voluntary

The U.S. Constitution provides that "the times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof" ³. Federal law requires each state, through its chief election official, to maintain "a single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list" ⁴. The EAC states that adhering to its Voluntary Voting System Guidelines "is voluntary except in select states where it is required by their own state law" ⁵. The EAC's 2026 deployment report adds that "federal law does not require states to use the VVSG," that "some states require full EAC certification," that others require testing to the VVSG or by accredited laboratories without requiring EAC certification, and that many require "their own independent certification or technical review process" ⁶. Approval in one state is not approval in another.

The 2020 federal risk assessment notes that election officials "in many states" use email, fax, web portals, or web applications to help groups "like military and overseas voters and voters with specific needs" vote remotely, that "some jurisdictions already use electronic ballot return systems," and it recommends paper return ⁷. Remote voting rules in the United States vary by state.

Switzerland: direct democracy and licensed e-voting trials

Switzerland's official overview explains that a popular initiative requires "the signatures of 100,000 voters who support the proposal" collected "within 18 months," that an optional referendum requires "50,000 valid signatures" collected "within 100 days of publication of the new legislation," and that "all constitutional amendments approved by Parliament are subject to a mandatory referendum" ⁸. "The Swiss electorate are called on approximately four times a year to vote on an average of fifteen such issues" ⁸. On electronic voting, the Federal Chancellery states that "e-voting is only permitted if strict requirements under federal law are met," that six cantons run trials, and that "the basic licences granted by the Federal Council are valid for a limited section of the electorate" ⁹. Since 2004, "15 cantons have offered internet voting to a limited part of their electorate in over 300 trials" ⁹. Even within one country, e-voting is canton by canton.

Estonia: national internet voting with binding results

Estonia's electoral office states that "electronic voting with binding results has been carried out in Estonia since 2005," using national digital identity credentials ¹⁰. That experience depends on Estonia's identity infrastructure and law; it does not transfer to a country without them.

Council of Europe: advisory standards

The Venice Commission's Code of Good Practice is advisory. It says voters "should always have the possibility of voting in a polling station," that electronic voting "should be used only if it is safe and reliable," and that fundamental elements of electoral law should not change less than one year before an election ¹¹. Member states apply such guidance through their own law.

Data protection differs too

In the European Union, the GDPR treats data "revealing ... political opinions" as a special category whose processing is prohibited unless an exception applies ¹². Other jurisdictions protect political data differently or not specifically. A participation system's legal duties around opinion data depend on where it operates and whom it serves. See privacy.

Local participation varies by city

Reykjavík's My Neighborhood program divides its participatory budget among city districts, with residents voting on ideas for their own district ¹³. Local participation, like elections, is organized by district.

Competing interpretations

Harmonization versus local control. One view holds that common national or international standards would raise quality and reduce cost. Another holds that local control protects against single points of failure and lets communities choose tradeoffs. The U.S. arrangement of voluntary federal guidelines plus state certification reflects a compromise between the two ^{5 6}.

Exporting a model versus learning from it. Estonia and Switzerland are often cited as models. Their systems rest on specific identity infrastructure, legal frameworks, and long trial histories ^{9 10}. Learning from them is different from assuming the same design would be lawful or safe elsewhere. See cases.

Interpretation, this site's reading. The question "Is it approved?" has no answer without "by whom, for what, and where." The framework treats any unqualified approval claim as a warning sign.

Application to this framework

1. No universal certification claim. My Vote Forward does not claim approval, certification, or legal status in any jurisdiction. EAC, NIST, and other documents are cited to explain requirements, not as approvals.
2. Jurisdiction-aware data model. The demo treats jurisdiction as data: a person's research area can involve several overlapping districts, and the full ballot is determined by the official ballot, not by a voter guide or by the demo. Synthetic scenarios are never visually confused with real authority records.
3. Official sources only. Candidate information is limited to the relevant official ballot guide, with source, edition, date, and jurisdiction. Where guide content is unavailable, the demo says so and links the official source. It never invents a registration or voting link. See identity and registration.
4. Localization is legal, not cosmetic. Calendars, deadlines, languages, and authority names differ. Overlapping calendars are discussed in participation over time.
5. Future official layer. Any official use would require legal authority from the responsible jurisdiction, its own approvals, independent evaluation, and compliance with its publication duties. See security and governance.
6. No device or country assumption. The framework does not assume one national ballot, aligned district boundaries, or that people own a particular device.

Unresolved questions

• How can the demo represent overlapping districts accurately without collecting a person's exact address?
• Which parts of the framework (priorities, opinions, releases) raise different legal questions in different countries, and which can be designed once?
• What would a responsible pilot in a single jurisdiction look like, and who in that jurisdiction would have to authorize it?
• How should conflicts between a jurisdiction's law and the framework's own principles, such as non-waivable ballot secrecy, be handled? The framework's position is that it would not operate where it could not keep the ballot secret.