I was sitting down today, getting all my information to file my tax returns online when the news came on about the upcomming presidential elections. I thought to myself, "why cant i just go online and vote for who i want like i file my taxes with the IRS?". Bypass that whole bogus electorial college that basically deny's so much of the countries' population of their vote because they are the minority in their respective state. Make every single vote count for who you want to be president, and do it from the comfort of your own home, or work, or a public computer etc etc etc. Wherever is most convenient for you.
I can do everything else online. Make purchases, file my taxes, do my banking, etc etc. I mean honestly, what other major social aspect in this country can i not do online other than vote? Everyone in the country has access to a computer. I goto the library occasionally and i'll see homeless people in the public library surfing the net for free.
Then i was thinking how, since i'd be voting online, they could put the voting record for all the major issue's in there with everyone i'm able to vote for. They could have a picture available, a personal bio on themsleves and what they've done in their lives. Criminal records, education, were they in the military?, what special interest groups (if any) have donated money to their elections in the past etc etc. So when i click the box next to their name i am actually making a good educated choice based on facts and not just whoever raised the most money for the election that year.
They could then take that one step forward. They could have a "help me choose" option, where you take a survey and you rate all the major issue's from "completely disagree" to "completely agree" with like 3 places in the middle of the 2 extrems. Then sort the candidates for the office i'm voting for by % of who matches most closely to how i feel on the issue's and how strongly i feel for them. Dont choose it for me, but just to give me a better idea of how closely the candidates match my personal views.
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Just for the record, i have never voted before in my life. I'm now 26, about to turn 27, and i still dont see any reason to vote. I've never lived in one of the lucky states where its close enough to both sides that my vote actually counts. I've always been in states where no matter how i vote, i already know ahead of time which candidate is going to get the electorial college votes.
On top of that, even if i did vote, i dont believe i could make a fair educated vote. Not because i havnt tried to find out who voted what, but just because its so difficult to find fair unbiased information on voting records and personal backgrounds of candidates.
That said, the reason i dont vote isnt because i dont care. I do care, and i DO want my voice to be heard. I just feel that the way the system is set up right now that it doesnt matter what i think, so whats the point of voting?
Presidential Vote from a PC?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
The US electoral system is flawed, but it's set up that way partly because we were originally a federation of states. Now we're far more like one state.
In a smaller state, your voice would ring more loudly
Aside from the potential security and fraud problems of what you suggest, voting is easy enough if not too easy as is. I see on the news long lines and other such problems, but I've never had to wait longer than 10 minutes. Usually the wait is less than a minute (I always vote.) With motor voter registration, even the laziest and most disinterested seem to be registered now.
However, I like your educational idea. Perhaps this is a need that ought to be filled? Perhaps some voluntary organisation ought to start up a site, help it to grow, and eventually set it up so that candidates can fill in such information themselves. As is candidates can bend information on their campaign sites to appear as something it isn't while hiding other information. If pressured into answering clear questions with simple answers, candidates shouldn't be able to obfuscate the truth as easily.
In a smaller state, your voice would ring more loudly
Aside from the potential security and fraud problems of what you suggest, voting is easy enough if not too easy as is. I see on the news long lines and other such problems, but I've never had to wait longer than 10 minutes. Usually the wait is less than a minute (I always vote.) With motor voter registration, even the laziest and most disinterested seem to be registered now.
However, I like your educational idea. Perhaps this is a need that ought to be filled? Perhaps some voluntary organisation ought to start up a site, help it to grow, and eventually set it up so that candidates can fill in such information themselves. As is candidates can bend information on their campaign sites to appear as something it isn't while hiding other information. If pressured into answering clear questions with simple answers, candidates shouldn't be able to obfuscate the truth as easily.
First hit on google for "us senate voting records". Seriously, voting records are among the easiest things to find. And I think Project VoteSmart is about what you're looking for when it comes to testing who fits you best etc.
In cases like this, I think transparency of process wins out of ease of use. I think votes should require people to go to a local polling station and write on a piece of paper and stick it in a box. To the average person, it's much harder to rig an election when the ballots are physically sitting in a box somewhere than it is to rig an electronic-only election. How many people have computers that are already compromised? Should we not trust their votes?
In summation, the electoral process is so important to our society, that going to the polling station is the least we can do to maintain it.
But I may be wrong.
In summation, the electoral process is so important to our society, that going to the polling station is the least we can do to maintain it.
But I may be wrong.
The electoral college system doesn't deny importance to anyone's vote, it actually does the opposite. If not for the electoral college system national candidates would only cater their campaigns to voters in New York/New England, Southern California, and maybe a scattering of high population density urban areas in between. That's where the most efficient "votes per advertising dollar" area are. The needs/wants of the rest of the nation outside of the major media markets would be under represented. No presidential would even visit places like Montana or Arkansas.
Do candidates actually go to Montana?
I wonder if Clinton even visited Arkansas :p
That said, I like state vote system I think... I like it for 2 reasons: 1. those you already said and 2. it gives rural and suburban (right wing) America a stronger vote.
One negative might be that third parties have less power under our current system, though perhaps main party crooks and sell-outs are better than third party kooks?
I wonder if Clinton even visited Arkansas :p
That said, I like state vote system I think... I like it for 2 reasons: 1. those you already said and 2. it gives rural and suburban (right wing) America a stronger vote.
One negative might be that third parties have less power under our current system, though perhaps main party crooks and sell-outs are better than third party kooks?
This would be a good idea except for security purposes. We do have systems today that can be setup that are relatively unhackable for information and I do beleive that it would be possible to set it up such that it would be secure from hackers in the traditional sense. However even if hackers couldn't get into the site they could setup viruses to mass traffic the voting sites effectively shutting them down. That and I would like to know how persons establish who they are. If it could be done with merely a name and social security number I would still say that's not secure enough with all of the identity theft cases that are around today. I don't know of any form of identification online that can truly establish who a person is.
There's possible to truely identify some smartcard type object, like ours (I live in Estonia) ID-card. Identity theft could be possible, but is unlikely (you have to steal both IDcard and corresponding PIN codes). IDcard itself is not hackable (well, it probably could be - by scanning smartcard chip with some overly expensive strucrtural analyzer or so, but this possibility doesn't count).Elixer wrote:I don't know of any form of identification online that can truly establish who a person is.
And we do have e-voting system too. Not for presidental elections (our president will be elected indirectly), but for other state level elections. Of course there's always big fuss about security, but IMHO our system is designed well.
To further minimize possibilty of stealing identity actual voting is organized in two steps - for some days before official voting day people can vote electronically; in voting day they can only vote physically and they CAN alter their (or not so their - in case identity is stolen) e-voting decision.
That was my point - that despite his originating from Arkansas I doubt he campaigned much there.Gojira-X wrote:Duh! of course he did, Even i know that he was State governor of Arkansas and I'm British!wonder if Clinton even visited Arkansas :p
I want to say he lost Arkansas both times he ran for president.
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As for e voting, I guess it boils down to whether one trusts man or not. I don't trust our government, and believe in general that without a paper ballot elections will be tampered with significantly more than with a paper ballot.
That said, my state or at least voting station votes electronically for elections. We travel to the voting station and cast our votes there. The process is very simple and fast, but I don't trust it.
You mean instead of the way they only campaign in swing states like iowa and ohio now?Rusty075 wrote:The electoral college system doesn't deny importance to anyone's vote, it actually does the opposite. If not for the electoral college system national candidates would only cater their campaigns to voters in New York/New England, Southern California, and maybe a scattering of high population density urban areas in between. That's where the most efficient "votes per advertising dollar" area are. The needs/wants of the rest of the nation outside of the major media markets would be under represented. No presidential would even visit places like Montana or Arkansas.
Honestly who cares where they go to campaign? I'd venture to guess that somthin like 99% of people who vote have never been to any of the presidential campaign visits. Everyone just watches it on TV or gets it off the net. Where they go to campaign is irrelovant. What the people want is what matters.
Another reason i dont vote, im currently stationed in South Korea, so i have to vote absentee ballot. They dont even count absentee ballot's unless a vote in the state is close enough to warrent. So my vote isnt even looked at if its not close in my state.
the electorial college system is BROKEN. It was created in a time before communication is so easily prevolant that it was the best they could do AT THAT TIME. Times have changed, and we can do much better than an electorial college now. And YES, it does DENY votes. If your in a state that ALWAYS goes republican on presidential elections then your vote doesnt count. Only swing state votes count. So for the other 80% of americans that arnt in a swing state your just SOL.
As far as security goes for voting online, ALL systems for voting have flaw's in some way. Nothing will ever be 100% secure. Current voting machines arent even 100% secure. People always scream "what if their hacked", well what about all those votes that got thrown out because the little piece of paper from the whole punch didnt completely sever from the voting sheet? You dont deny a completely valid aprouch to voting because its not 100%.
Identy Theft happens, Shit happens, its life. You dont crawl into a ball and do nothing because somthing COULD POSSIBLY happen. Hackers would not be able to shut down the entire internet to keep everyone from voting. If the internet is safe enough for billions of dollars in banking transactions, and tax returns through the IRS, then its safe enough for a presidential vote.
And some more than others. All voting systems are not created equal.ALL systems for voting have flaw's in some way. Nothing will ever be 100% secure. Current voting machines arent even 100% secure.
As things are now, each state is deciding for itself which presidential candidate it will support.
The reason for this is that we were once 13 independent, fully sovereign states. This has nothing to do with technology.
Think of it this way: the US was as the EU is now.