Skip Parish is a consultant in high technology and new technology for defense contractors and former consultant for http://www.darpa.mil/sto/, the US government's think tank for new technology. He was involved with the first government and civilian uses of online access to information in the early 1980s, prior to the widespread use of the internet. He has briefed the US military on threats to and solutions for advanced communications and security of communications in global financial transactions as well as advanced technology used in military operations, the "new new" in current technology. He graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in government, has worked for the Department of Justice, built computer transaction systems in foreign countries, and holds patents on computer communications, electro-optical tools used in the military, and management of large-scale communications during natural disasters.

In recent years Mr. Parish has been quoted in the NY Times and other publications as an expert in voting technology and has functioned as a computer observer under Florida law in many elections, finding infractions of the law in the use of election devices and undocumented bugs in the software, and contributed to better procedures and process in the conduct of elections.

Over the last five months, he researched the functional infrastructure of an online voting system designed for the US military, which conducted a "test" in the last general election, sending troop voting from Japan, Germany, and the UK to Florida. Mr. Parish worked on some of the same communication systems used in that test while a consultant for a global telecommunications firm. Mr. Parish has concerns that online voting for US troops, while assisting them to vote faster, will compromise their safety and their missions.

Mr. Parish was a guest on Voice of the Voters on March 4, 2009.