Why can't we vote online?

[swtethan]

bill gates would somehow win

 

[xeemzor]

Originally posted by: chuckywang
The vote would be skewed towards the middle and upper class.

Isn't it already?

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Syringer
Why would republicans get a boost? Most young people are democrats, and they are the lowest represented group when it comes to voting..so if there is an online portion it certainly would increase that young group by a tremendous amount, thereby helping the democrats.

I think the logic went something like this:
(1) Republicans are more likely now to be in jobs where they cannot leave and vote. Thus, some don't vote in the current situation due to their job situation.
(2) Republicans are far more likely to have computers and internet access at home. Heck, they could often vote right from their desk at work. The poorest (who are disproportionally Democrat) don't have online access at home or work. So they'd still have to take time out of their day to drive to some library.

True, these do not apply to 100% of the people. Just that there are big discrepancies in the percentages of people in those categories.

Even with the increased youth vote, they still don't care enough to vote even if it was online.

 

[TheNinja]

Originally posted by: xeemzor

Originally posted by: chuckywang
The vote would be skewed towards the middle and upper class.

Isn't it already?

The vote is skewed towards the groups that care enough to vote. Those that only bitch about things but don't actually vote often get confused about this issue and can't seem to figure out why their candidates/props never win.

 

[Syringer]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: Syringer
Why would republicans get a boost? Most young people are democrats, and they are the lowest represented group when it comes to voting..so if there is an online portion it certainly would increase that young group by a tremendous amount, thereby helping the democrats.

I think the logic went something like this:
(1) Republicans are more likely now to be in jobs where they cannot leave and vote. Thus, some don't vote in the current situation due to their job situation.
(2) Republicans are far more likely to have computers and internet access at home. Heck, they could often vote right from their desk at work. The poorest (who are disproportionally Democrat) don't have online access at home or work. So they'd still have to take time out of their day to drive to some library.

True, these do not apply to 100% of the people. Just that there are big discrepancies in the percentages of people in those categories.

Even with the increased youth vote, they still don't care enough to vote even if it was online.

Aren't companies supposed to allow time off to their employees to vote?

 

[NanoStuff]

They should allow Canada to vote in the presidential elections. Being Canadian I'm rather insulted we have not been offered that opportunity.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Syringer
Aren't companies supposed to allow time off to their employees to vote?

Possible, but I've never heard of it. If I haven't heard of it, much of the American population hasn't either. That said, many of the upper middle class (heavilly republican) values their work even more than voting. So given the chance to have 3 hours off to vote, they still don't go. These same people would vote if it were convenient and they didn't have to leave work.

 

[SVT Cobra]

Originally posted by: kranky
Online voting would indeed be simple. After that, we disagree.

If you think it would be easy to monitor votes, and detect and correct problems, you're dreaming.

People need to realize the problems that would absolutely result from online voting. Do you realize how high the stakes are? You would have the most highly skilled hackers in the world working to either ruin the system or else manipulate it.

You'd have people who can't operate the Enter key suing because something went wrong with their attempt to vote and they were "disenfranchised". You'd have people paying other people for the use of their passcode. You'd have any number of other issues that would cast suspicion on the results, and if you think we have a lot of election results tied up in court NOW, wait until that happens.

Frankly, I'm glad people won't wait in line to vote. These are usually the same people who will do anything to get out of jury duty, as they have no sense of obligation associated with citizenship. All the people who can't be bothered to head out to vote just increases the importance of my vote.

There is certainly fraud now, but the system keeps it under control. With tons and tons of places for people to vote, there's a comparatively small number of total voters at any one polling place. So if there are 4,000 eligible voters for a polling place, and 2,000 bother to show up, even the most blatant fraud can't give someone a 2,500 vote lead from that district. There's a record of the number of people who physically showed up.

Do it online, and magically you'll see voter "turnout" rise up to the 90% level. That will mean 40% of the votes are fraudulent instead of the 5% or so it is now.

Very Good Post :thumbsup:

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: Syringer
The bottom line is, pretty much every other facet of our lives that's possible to do online is done online or in the process of being online, why not push the most fundamental right as a citizen to do so as well?

Because no one can guarantee it will be done properly.

So let me rant on some more about this horrible idea.

Can we agree that if we had online voting, any increase in voter turnout would pretty much be the number of people who used to skip voting, but will vote because it's online?

If so, do you know how hard it would be for an incumbent to lose an election? Officeholders get reelected now at a rate of 90%-plus. Too many people vote for the name they recognize (because they haven't done any preparation for making a decision) and in most cases, that most-recognized name is the incumbent. Now, add tons more people who are likely to be uninformed voters. It would take a miracle for ANYONE to not get re-elected.

Let's revisit the buying votes topic for a minute. Let's say I go to a campus of a community college because as a group the students are unlikely be wealthy. And I spread the word around campus that it's important to elect John Doe, because John Doe is against the war in Iraq, will ban abortion, and wants to increase grants for college students. Oh, and John Doe is in a very tight race and every vote counts. You know, midterms are right around election time and maybe not every student will remember to vote, so if you want to make sure your vote for John Doe gets counted, I could arrange for your vote to be cast - hey, you don't even have to worry about it. I'll take care of it for you while you cram for midterms. Oh, need an extra $20 for pizza? I can help you out.

Whether you believe it or not, if I could keep it quiet I would have a ton of students essentially letting me buy their vote for $20. And then I could vote for whoever I wanted.

Remember the people who don't bother to vote now don't value their vote. So why would they hesitate to sell it for a few bucks? Hey, free money!

 

[ryan256]

Originally posted by: evetstech
1. Hackers
2. Computer Illiterate people
3. Hackers

:thumbsup:
/thread

 

[radioouman]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: Syringer
Aren't companies supposed to allow time off to their employees to vote?

Possible, but I've never heard of it. If I haven't heard of it, much of the American population hasn't either. That said, many of the upper middle class (heavilly republican) values their work even more than voting. So given the chance to have 3 hours off to vote, they still don't go. These same people would vote if it were convenient and they didn't have to leave work.

There is a good chance that my employer would fire me if I took three hours off to vote. I value my employment more than an optional part of being a citizen.

 

[Armitage]

There are already huge questions about the security & verification of electronic voting machines at regular polling places. I'm not convinced that you can even have a secure & verfiable election with those machines even under those circumstances where all of the hardware is owned by the election commision, no network connectivity, and voting occurs in a supervised & controlled environment. If you just turn it loose on the net you will have chaos.

I'd prefer to go back to paper ballots counted by real live people actually.

Regarding times to vote - I think I waited about 20 minutes once in a presidential election - largely because I got there during the pre-workday rush. During the day they were probably empty. At mid term elections there is never a line.

 

[BrokenVisage]

My last group project in College involved implementing an online voting system, it's not as easy as you may think.

 

[Syringer]

Originally posted by: kranky

Originally posted by: Syringer
The bottom line is, pretty much every other facet of our lives that's possible to do online is done online or in the process of being online, why not push the most fundamental right as a citizen to do so as well?

Because no one can guarantee it will be done properly.

So let me rant on some more about this horrible idea.

Can we agree that if we had online voting, any increase in voter turnout would pretty much be the number of people who used to skip voting, but will vote because it's online?

If so, do you know how hard it would be for an incumbent to lose an election? Officeholders get reelected now at a rate of 90%-plus. Too many people vote for the name they recognize (because they haven't done any preparation for making a decision) and in most cases, that most-recognized name is the incumbent. Now, add tons more people who are likely to be uninformed voters. It would take a miracle for ANYONE to not get re-elected.

Let's revisit the buying votes topic for a minute. Let's say I go to a campus of a community college because as a group the students are unlikely be wealthy. And I spread the word around campus that it's important to elect John Doe, because John Doe is against the war in Iraq, will ban abortion, and wants to increase grants for college students. Oh, and John Doe is in a very tight race and every vote counts. You know, midterms are right around election time and maybe not every student will remember to vote, so if you want to make sure your vote for John Doe gets counted, I could arrange for your vote to be cast - hey, you don't even have to worry about it. I'll take care of it for you while you cram for midterms. Oh, need an extra $20 for pizza? I can help you out.

Whether you believe it or not, if I could keep it quiet I would have a ton of students essentially letting me buy their vote for $20. And then I could vote for whoever I wanted.

Remember the people who don't bother to vote now don't value their vote. So why would they hesitate to sell it for a few bucks? Hey, free money!

And..this would change with an online system now? You claim you've never had to wait more than 15 minutes to cast your vote, so why does this not happen during every election year now?

There's been a constant move for ages to try to get more young people to get involved in our election process, and there are essentially three groups out there: those who don't care at all, those who do care and will vote regardless of the system, and a good number who care but don't want to take the initiative to go out and vote.

An online system would slowly and surely cause more young people to care, since they will realize that it won't be any trouble to them, and they will begin to look more into the issues. People are continually complaning that we're not a democracy because not everyone votes as they do in other western democratic countries, this would change that drastically as time goes on..and I have little doubt that one day, I have no idea when, that we will be eventually able to vote online.

What we have now is an outdated system that can use some change, that will make things easier to take part in, and simpler to keep track of..do you really think in 20-30 years we'll still be punching ballots? Obviously there will be a way to try to make the system as completely fool proof as possible, and while there'll be no way to make it perfect, it shouldn't be an impossible task to make it as "effective" as the system we've been using for the past 200+ years.

 

[Syringer]

Originally posted by: radioouman

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: Syringer
Aren't companies supposed to allow time off to their employees to vote?

Possible, but I've never heard of it. If I haven't heard of it, much of the American population hasn't either. That said, many of the upper middle class (heavilly republican) values their work even more than voting. So given the chance to have 3 hours off to vote, they still don't go. These same people would vote if it were convenient and they didn't have to leave work.

There is a good chance that my employer would fire me if I took three hours off to vote. I value my employment more than an optional part of being a citizen.

I can't believe you guys have never heard of this law. It's mentioned on the news every time an election rolls around, and I'm not even a full time worker. Granted it's not applicable to all states, but a majority of states have something like this.

You should show them this then. http://www.wildmanharrold.com/labor_library/Voting_Time_Off_Laws.htm

In California you are given 2 paid hours off to go vote..and in Ohio:

Time: Employees must be allowed a reasonable time off from work to vote (no amount of time specified). Employees who are election officials for purposes of voter registration and poll watching must be allowed time off also.

· Pay: Employers must pay employees for the time taken off to vote, unless employees are paid an hourly wage, on a piece work basis, or receive a commission. Employees who take time off may not be penalized.

· Penalty: Failure to comply with Ohio law may subject employers to a fine of $50 to $500.

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: Syringer
There's been a constant move for ages to try to get more young people to get involved in our election process, and there are essentially three groups out there: those who don't care at all, those who do care and will vote regardless of the system, and a good number who care but don't want to take the initiative to go out and vote.

See, I lump those into the "don't care" pile. I'm hard-pressed to feel badly for people who can't find an hour or two to spare, one or two days a year, in order to vote for elected officials. They are uninformed. They don't study the issues or the candidates. So I'm not really interested in making it easier for them to vote at the expense of massive, certain election fraud.

Polls are open where I live from 7 AM to 8 PM. And for the handful of people who have such long work schedules that those 13 hours do not accomodate them, they have absentee ballots.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for younger people becoming more involved. But being more involved doesn't mean finding ways to vote from your bathroom using WiFi. Read. Learn the issues. Research the candidates. Get the voter's guides from the League of Women Voters. I guarantee that every person who put forth that effort would absolutely find a way to vote.

 

[zanieladie]

Originally posted by: Poulsonator
We can't even vote right using booths...how could we do it right online?

How true!

 

[mundane]

Originally posted by: Syringer

Originally posted by: evetstech
1. Hackers
2. Computer Illiterate people
3. Hackers

You speak as though fraud does not exist in the current system, and that the current system does not confuse the sh!t out of people either.

No one would force anyone to vote online, the 60-year-old geezer can still head down to the ballot boxes and cast his/her vote, and the 19-year-old myspace user who would not vote otherwise can just do it online in mere minutes.

If that's what the consequences are, I'd prefer to keep the current system, thank-you-very-much.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: evetstech
1. Hackers
2. Computer Illiterate people
3. Hackers

They should totally start executing these people instead of hiring them to combat other hackers.... That would totally deter *anyone* from becoming a hacker! Factor them out of the equation.

 

[RaistlinZ]

If you are eligible to vote, and you choose not to vote, then you have no right to complain about how the country is being run.

 

[jumpr]

I think making election day a national holiday would have a much larger (and more beneficial) effect on turnout.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: Syringer
The whole ballots issue is very outdated...

Um, no. It's not.