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Lately I have heard some concern over something having to do with voting machines. It appears many of them facilitate corruption. For instance, there is no honest reason for Diebold to keep their source code and electronic design a secret. So obviously their interests are self serving, and therefore they cannot be trusted. Their response to their system's vulnerabilities lacked any sense of acknowledgement toward the findings of Princeton researchers.
As someone who dabbles in both programming and electronic design, I know that in this industry, that kind of arrogance screams incompetence. Basically, if they won't reveal their design there probably is something wrong with it.
However, even if the voting machines were reliable it would hardly fix the overall problem.
In the meantime, let me submit a ridiculously ‘fringe’ idea.
This will really sound crazy to many, but I'm positive this is where things will head eventually, assuming Democracy survives.... Why not use technology in a positive manner? I know that I sound crazy already. I know. I must be a nutcase... but hear me out. The only reason computerized touch screen voting systems exist today is to fill the bank accounts of a few weak minded republican wannabe techies who consider every line of crappy code they vomit out to be proprietary. So again, why not use technology for something positive instead?
This may sound like a futuristic unobtainable dream to the dull minded, but in reality, a few competent people could create this system in a few weeks...
This is what we need: The U.S. should obtain votes from every eligible voter online!
Simply create a database which records each vote according social security number. Individuals' home addresses can be mapped to state ID's, driver's licenses, and/or other records which are already on file. Give each person a code that only they know, and enable them to check in to make sure their votes were recorded properly. People could then also be able to view the comprehensive results including their own votes without actually knowing each others' votes. This would be an infallible system that eliminates the possibility of corruption.
Then, we will have obtained true Democracy and convenience. Republicans believe that voting should be an exclusive privilege that belongs to a few. I believe that everyone has a voice that should be heard.
Progress can be scary to some but it is necessary. Democracy must be compelled to obtain votes from everyone. The key to alleviating concerns, I think, is making the system open, unlike the Diebold system which is not open but closed to overall inspection. That is a typical Republican strategy -- excluding people from the Democratic system because of course they do not believe in Democracy.
We have had an open system up until now -- paper ballots. The problem is that although paper ballots are open, the majority of the population is excluded as a result of social factors... working that day, not having transportation, not knowing where the polling places are, not having been registered, etc.
The idea is simply this: online people could see how they voted and how their neighbors voted without actually knowing who they are (via private IDs), for the sake of privacy. That way corruption is avoided. They know their voted is counted because they can see it in the list. And they know what the overall count is because they see all the votes right in front of them.
To address the possibility of the so called "dead man" votes, there are also ways of avoiding that. For instance, the system could tabulate the address of each voter without revealing their choices. If anyone sees that nonexistent neighbors are on the list it would get reported and the fraud would be revealed, making it virtually impossible for anyone to pull off such a fraud. (Identity theft would be avoided in a similar way -- people would see the fraud and report it, so there would be no sense trying to pull it off)
To sum things up, by doing this in an open and electronic manner, a way that every kid who uses MySpace these days understands, the U.S. can obtain votes from practically everyone, or at least a huge percentage of the population the likes of which has never been seen before.
What's happening is, Republicans plan to take advantage of our irrational (and momentary) fear of computer technology just like they take advantage of every other human weakness for their own self serving schemes. Ideally we would be strong and progress, take the lead, and admit that this plan would work!
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