Last month, America celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which fundamentally changed how we vote in this country. Now there's an app that could shake things up again.

Votem is a mobile voting platform that aims to revolutionize the electoral process by allowing users to cast votes for state, midterm, and presidential elections from their smart phones. On November 9, Votem will announce the winners of its $230,000 Mobile Voting Challenge—a competition to develop the secure and accurate technology to bring mobile voting to the United States and beyond.

The potential drawbacks are obvious. Mobile technology, though convenient, carries inherent security risks, including hacking and fraud. Imagine the 2000 presidential race without a paper trail.

Many computer security experts doubt Internet voting could ever be foolproof, but if security kinks were to be successfully ironed out, smartphone-based voting could help reverse some disturbing trends. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required states with histories of discrimination to get approval from the federal government for any changes to their election laws. Since then, many states have introduced new voting restrictions, from voter ID laws to stringent voter registration requirements.

Many of these restrictions, which predominantly affect minorities, could be lifted by a mobile voting app. Limitations on out-of-precinct voting and early voting that make it difficult for people who work odd hours or don’t own cars to vote would become irrelevant.

Phone-based voting would also expand access to disabled voters who are unable to travel to polling places. In Oregon, officials are already using mobile technologies to provide assistive voting to residents with disabilities.

Plus, mobile voting would mean fewer polling stations and paper ballots, which would mean a greener electoral process. So voting by phone could help Sierra Club-endorsed climate champions get elected and  would also be eco-friendly? We'd vote for that.