Thursday, October 28, 2010
E-Voting
The article, E-Voting: How Secure is it? , caught my eye as midterm elections are coming up. At first, when reading the article I thought about the benefits e-voting would offer. For example, it would definitely be easier to vote if you could vote from your home or office or even on your phone, and this would also increase voting participation. But, when I thought about the disadvantages of e-voting, initially I only considered the risk of people voting multiple times or under a name that was different from their own. However, the article pointed out an even greater risk, which is that e-voting could expose the election infrastructure to attacks from anyone in the world! In my opinion this is a risk that definitely outweighs the benefits.
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E-voting offers endless opportunities for fraudulent behavior. I agree that the risks outweigh the benefits. Getting up on election day, making it out to the polls and casting your vote is an American tradition that I hope stays as is. I'm all for the increasing role and advances with technology AT the polls, but that's where I have to draw the line. The freedom that E-voting would provide is dangerously high.
ReplyDeleteI agree that e-voting would be dangerous if initiated now, but I hope that it is soon a common way to vote. I think we would have such a huge turn-out if voting was more convenient. Just think of all the poeple who would actually vote that probably will not vote on Tuesday...
ReplyDeleteWe switched to e-voting last year for law school elections and we had a huge increase in participation. I know law school student government elections are completely unimportant compared to the US presidential elections, but I think one day we will be voting via the internet.
I completely agree with Kevin in that the risks outweigh the benefits. It is only be a matter of time until someone discovers a way to alter elections and that is an extremely scary thought. While I enjoy being able to do many tasks over the internet, voting would not be one of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is way to much risk in voting online. Hackers spend time now crashing sites for fun with not much motive behind it. With all of the corruption that is involved in politics, there would definitely be some funny business going on with these elections. I believe that the results would be easily manipulated, leading to the wrong people getting elected. While I agree it would be much easier and get more people to participate, the risks are too high for this to be implemented successfully.
ReplyDeleteE-voting would definitely make things easier. For instance, I know many of my friends will not be voting next weekend because they are registered to vote outside of Baton Rouge and will not be going home due to the Alabama game. The convenience of e-voting would definitely increase voting rates. However, I agree that the risks associated with e-voting definitely outweigh the benefits. I guess we can only hope someone will discover some other way to increase the ease and accuracy of voting soon.
ReplyDeleteForget the risks, just make an app for the iphone! Apple is really hard on approving apps for the app store. Sorry, I just felt I had to disagree for a second from everyone else. Really, I think everyone else has brought up the risks for e-voting. However, the point from Holly about convenience can still be worked on. How many students in college do not vote because they cannot get to the home they are registered to vote or simply forget to vote early? I think they should develop voting stations around the country that allows a person to vote for the area they are registered. That way a person could spend a few minutes before they catch a flight to vote, go vote between classes, or vote at the subway station. I think they should focus on moving from making the voter go to the polling place to moving the places to vote to where the voters are.
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