University Developing Technology To Vote On Your Tablet, Smartphone 259
smitty_one_each writes in with this story about a professor developing a new electronic voting system. "A Clemson University professor is developing a new electronic voting system that will allow voters to cast their ballots from home computers, tablets and smartphones. As Clemson's chair of human-centered computing, Juan Gilbert has lead teams of students over the last 10 years to create an online voting system accessible at home or on the go that will be more accurate, have increased verification and make voting more accessible to people with disabilities by offering mobile and voice-command options."
When I tried something similar (Score:5, Interesting)
We were going to have petitions where you could negative sign the petition to disagree. So politicians don't see a list of 10,000 signatures when 100,000 people hate it.
The problem we had was determining who is a registered voter. It is hard to verify people as having a real identifier especially if you have no start up capital to send out stamps for snail mail verification methods. And another problem is once you have registered voters, how do you watch out for hackers? We decided we couldn't solve these problems and gave up.
Someone really could make a hyper democracy site though. there's a market for it. Educate the voters on their desires for politics, and tell them which of their elected officials voted for or against certain topics they're interested in! It is real simple in concept. It'd start out as a voter education site, but if it seriously got powerful, politics could be different with an educated voter base.
Re:Won't happen (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you have it backwards. According to the Maxwell Poll [syr.edu], 60-80% of welfare recipients voted Democrat. Generally speaking, welfare recipients receive welfare because they have low income. People with low income can't afford as much gadgetry. Thus it will make it even more convenient for a higher percentage of Republicans to vote compared to Democrats because more of them can afford the hardware. You can expect Democrats to resist this far more than Republicans.
(I know, I took your post insulting the intelligence of people who disagree with your political viewpoint literally, but you are wrong regardless of your motive)
Re:Won't happen (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah, it isn't that at all. Many people who would vote for republicans frequent the interweb and even this site. Generally, the smarter a person gets, the more republican they tend to lean in ideology even if they insist on remaining democrats or liberals. And before anyone marks that down, I said lean as in their positions tend towards but doesn't necessarily hit. Many people will find their natural position on any given topic will lean in a direction they don't consider to be the democratic or republican and will correct their initial assessment once they find out what others in their favored side state.
What they fear is- and why they won't allow it is that the people who don't vote will end up casting a vote anyways and it will always be for the democrats running. That is why they want ID of some sort to be presented when you cast your vote- to prove you are who you say you are and not the guy who got you to register knowing you would be too stoned to get off the couch and go vote on election day.
Re: So now... (Score:2, Interesting)
You are the reason people in Texas have no problem shooting across the border.
Re:Nope (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason there is no remote voting
Well, actually, there is, throughout the US: absentee ballots. And absentee ballots are significantly more prone to fraud than in-person votes, including quite a few criminal prosecutions for fraud schemes across the country. Oh, and there have been cases of election officials conveniently locating a bunch of absentee ballots after election day that had been "lost".
Back when I was living in New Hampshire during a hotly contested presidential primary, a "completely independent" group of volunteers showed up at my grandmother's nursing home to help the residents cast their votes, helpfully filling out the ballots so that all the voters needed to do was sign their name at the bottom. Clearly nothing funny going on there.
Re:so you boss can force you to vote at work there (Score:2, Interesting)
That already happens in some states in the US. When I was an admin at Microsoft, our boss's boss told us to bring in our ballots one day. Yes, in this state, we are not allowed to vote securely like in much of the country. Instead, ballots are mailed to us then are returned by mail. Several women's groups claim a large portion of husbands votes with ballots intended for their wives or children over 18. I know that working for a huge tech company means that you will have to vote the way you're told. A friend's church has their members collect ballots then a group of volunteers fill-in the forms for the members and drops them off in bulk. It's a shame that the Republicans that rule this state care so little about the right to vote that they decided to destroy our rights by making voting 100% insecure. The Democrats may have the majority, but they always do what they are told to by the Republicans.
Re:So now... (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. And thieves have been stealing for even longer time. But only fairly recently has it become possible to steal vast sums of money without physically going to were it is stored [usatoday.com] — without even traveling into the country, where the storage is located.
Once we create some sort of e-vote, the politicians — the incumbents, especially — will be in a position to rig not just a few precincts here and there, but an entire polity (city, state, nation). "If it's not close, they can't cheat," [amazon.com] — was the saying about elections. With an electronic vote, much as I'd like the convenience, cheating will become easier and will no longer need a close vote...