VoteXR: Virtual Reality USA Election Poll
Voting in virtual reality could be the future, now you can voice your choice in VR.
LOS ANGELES, November 2, 2020—Hot Bit VR, virtual reality events, announces there is still time to participate in the virtual reality presidential poll experience, VoteXR (www.votexr.com) that allows users to select their choice of 2020 Presidential candidates, and rank the issues that contributed to their choice. The goal is to discover where early adopters of technology stand in the election, and give a glimpse of a future method for casting secure ballots from home.
Methods of voting in the United States have changed with technological advancements. For the first 50 years of United States history, those who could vote (white men) cast their vote by voice “viva voce” at their local courthouse. By the mid 19th century, paper ballots were introduced. In 1892, Jacob H. Myers’s Automatic Voting Booth became the standard in many districts for almost a century. Beginning in the 1960’s punch card voting, using computer punch card systems, were introduced, but led to errors including the famous “hanging chad” debacle of the 2000 election’s Florida recount.
Now, many election jurisdictions vote in person via iPad, but could at home voting be even more secure via virtual reality? “VR technology can allow for the collection of biometric data like iris scans that are as unique as fingerprints.” Hot Bit VR’s CEO, Marcy Boyle, noted. “One patent has already been issued for a virtual and/or augmented reality voting system, and I suspect it will become the standard when VR adoption is on par with smartphones.”
Virtual reality’s most common use case currently is video gaming. But, current trends towards politicians using video games to reach a younger demographic are proving to be very effective. The Biden/Harris campaign harnessed the power of Fortnite for a “Build Back Better with Biden” island that supports rallies and mini games, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played the popular video game Among Us on a Twitch live stream to engage 435,000 viewers to get out the vote.
Hot Bit had video games in mind when they built the VoteXR experience. VoteXR is available as a headset agnostic webVR experience, or can be interacted with like a WASD videogame (using those keyboard keys to navigate) through any modern browser.
Hot Bit VR is building a platform for a new kind of experiential shopping in virtual reality. Co-founders Marcy Boyle and Rachel Holzman met at Columbia University, and had a film company together before devoting themselves to virtual reality in 2015. Marcy Boyle, CEO, is a frequent speaker VR and shopping, including interviews on ZDnet’s Tonya Hall Show, Carnegie Mellon’s US-China Summit, VRUK, RIOT by PIRATE in Berlin, and keynotes at Augmented World Expo 2019, and KAIST University’s ICISTS Conference 2017 in South Korea. Rachel Holzman, CTO, is a webVR evangelist, 3D specialist, and VR Macgyver who cobbled together early VR solutions to enable a VR livestream of an event for the Television Academy’s Emmy Awards, and a monthly partnership with Microsoft’s Altspace. Our VR experiences have been featured at art galleries, on SamsungVR, conferences and events including 2019 Cannes XR Arcade and FIVARS. For more information VoteXR or Hot Bit VR, please Terry Nash at Terry@hotbitvr.com.
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