Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Why Can't Americans Vote Online?
“Tuesday is Election Day in the United States, and although the mostly state and local races won't stir the same passions as next year's presidential contest, millions of people will cast ballots” (CNN P.1). “All of which raises the question: In an era when virtually every daily task can be done on the Internet, why can't we vote online, too” (P. 3)? This raises a good question in my eyes. We can go in and vote, we can mail in our vote, in the 21st century with all the amazing technology, why can’t we find a secure way to vote online? “But critics, many of them in the cybersecurity world, argue that letting people cast votes from their home computers is a recipe for chaos” (P. 7). This is probably the only thing holding this feature back. But, they say other countries either are heading in this direction or have tried it. For example, the 80 countries in Canada have tried to use it, and have been successful. This is our future.
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I hate to say it, but it never occurred to me that voting could (should?) be allowed online. It makes a lot of sense to me. If people are worried about security, everyone could have a unique pin number, as we do when submitting our yearly FAFSA that qualifies us to apply for financial aid. If they are worried that someone else might get the pin number and submit votes instead of the correct person, then have the submission automatically kick back a reply to the correct person’s email to click on the link and validate the vote.
ReplyDeleteThe upside, I think, would be that with proper “marketing” and communication voting numbers might drastically increase. People like doing things from the comfort of their home and more and more homes now have a computer and proficient users. An additional benefit would be a lot of the time-consuming counting of votes because of the automation, resulting in quicker results.
I can’t see a downside, except there would need to be a deadline for submitting an online vote so that voters’ names would still appear in the list at their polling place, but as unable to submit a ballot due to prior voting. One objection might come up about the justice of online voting, since every home doesn’t have a computer, but computer are available in libraries and other places.
Thought-provoking article, thanks!
Very interesting article. I'm glad that you decided to write on this topic.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a bill board that I came across on Alma St. I was walking to the San Jose State vs. Idaho game at Spartan stadium over the weekend and noticed an advertisement that was heavily covered in graffiti. The advertisement stated that it was possible to vote electronically in the Mexican elections. Now, my Spanish is not bullet proof but I understood the fact that Mexico must be one of the 80 nations that are taking part in the internet election process. Very interesting.
I also agree that letting people vote from their home computer is a recipe for disaster. With so many hackers on the internet, I can only imagine all the bad things that could happen. As identity theft has risen over the pass few years, it is not hard to imagine someone stealing hundreds to thousands of identities to vote. Another thing I want to say is just because we have the capability to do something, doesn't mean we should. After all we had and still have the capability of building one of the deadliest nuclear bombs but it doesn't mean we should do it (and i'm glad we recently dismantled one of the nation's deadliest nuke bombs)! With everything being done via mobile device or computer, I am glad that voting has not gone down this route as well.
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