How Amazon moved into the business of U.S. elections

So do America's two main political parties, the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and the U.S. federal body charged with administering and enforcing federal campaign finance laws.

"The fact that we have invested heavily in this area, it helps to attest to the fact that in over 40 states, the Amazon cloud is being trusted to power in some way, some aspect of elections," Michael Jackson, leader, Public Health & U.S. Elections at AWS, told prospective government clients in February via a presentation on a webinar, which was viewed by Reuters.

Still, Amazon's growing presence in the elections business could undermine what many officials view as a strength of the U.S. voting system: decentralization. Amazon's push into the election business comes as the company faces criticism from politicians, labor unions and privacy advocates over its business practices and growing influence. President Donald Trump has accused the company of competing unfairly and repeatedly attacked the Washington Post, owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, for alleged bias, a charge Bezos and the paper deny.

"Some of the largest presidential, congressional and gubernatorial campaigns are also trusted to AWS," Amazon's Jackson told clients in the February webinar viewed by Reuters. An ES&S spokeswoman said the company has not seen any impact from Amazon's efforts. Dominion did not respond to requests for comment.Voting itself does not happen via Amazon. Voting machines in most states are not connected to any cloud service.

In his webinar to clients, Amazon's Jackson said these services help the company win bigger contracts. For example, Oklahoma has tied up with an Amazon partner and pays $26,000 for two services on Amazon's servers, Pam Slater, assistant secretary at the Oklahoma State Election board said.

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