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:
Overheated church gym here. Long line. Bright glaring lights. It's all good.
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.
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
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...
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
in '08 you will be able to vote via your cel phone ...at least that's what they predict
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