Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Voting Is Too Inconvenient

For the most part we go out of our way to make things convenient, easily accessible and fast in this country. Except voting. You only get thirteen hours on a Tuesday. Why not 24 hours on the weekend? Or a whole week? Absentee ballots require planning. Lately you can vote ahead of time around here at twenty-six designated locations. But just try finding one.

I think I should be able to go anywhere in the country to vote. Use my fingerprint or read my retina, whatever, to identify me so I can vote out of town.  I should be able to vote by computer, by phone, or kiosk in a library or a police station.  My precinct options from hundreds or thousands of miles away would appear on a screen and I could make my choices.

No need for absentee ballots.  No need to worry about whether my vote has been hijacked by local yokels. Everything goes into a single counting location -- not a million different places where it can get lost. 

I know all the many hacker possibilities. And they'll invent more. But you watch, in twenty-five years, this will all come to pass. It always takes a generation.

Yes, I voted today. It was in an overheated school and everything was surpassingly inconvenient, but I did my civic damn duty. 

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Overheated church gym here.  Long line.  Bright glaring lights.  It's all good.

Anonymous said...

I vote for one of those chip things they put in lost dogs. I can now pay for my groceries with a fingerprint scan. It won't get fixed until someone figures out a way to make money from it.

Just don't put AOL in charge.

Anonymous said...

I work 12 hour shifts in a hospital. If by chance, I'd had to work today I would have had to do it by absentee ballot.  I wonder if someday we'll be able to do it on the computer?
Heck, we had more time to vote on the Vivi's!
Pam

Anonymous said...

That'll be a helluva computer and database program -- that much data on 220 million eligible voters will require more super computers than have been produced since the beginning of the 20th century...

Anonymous said...

I went with my four year old, who alternately wrapped herself around my leg and/or shook the makeshift booth as I made my marks.

It was worse than a hanging chad, all those semi-straight lines.

Didn't matter--I fed the ballot into the machine, and it went "ding".  
I swear I heard the lady behind the machine whisper "bat.":p
Anna

Anonymous said...

in '08 you will be able to vote via your cel phone ...at least that's what they predict