“No currently known technology—including blockchain—is close to enabling mobile or Internet voting systems to simultaneously achieve of all these requirements,” researchers from MIT wrote in a 2021 peer-reviewed paper titled “Going from bad to worse: from Internet voting to blockchain voting.” The year of the D.C. meltdown, Brooke Pinto wasn’t yet living in the District.But after becoming the youngest-ever D.C. councilmember in 2020, she began working on one of the most expansive mobile voting bills in the country.According to emails obtained through a public records request, in July 2021 her brother introduced her to Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist who made millions from stock and options received from his work at Uber.After Pinto signaled her interest in pushing internet voting, Tusk’s team, including his organization’s D.C. lobbyist, Max Brown of Group 360, commissioned a public poll on the issue, rallied support from prominent civil rights groups like the NAACP, connected Pinto with experts, and helped draft the legislation and an op-ed in support of it.The foundation of Tusk’s argument — that internet voting will “exponentially” increase turnout — is contradicted by mountains of evidence, including research he’s funded."