From what I've heard there are a number of US States already using video touch-screens in their polling stations in this election, and some have also experimented with Internet voting (for more local elections I believe). The touch screens apparently preserve "an image" (dunno what exactly that means) of how you voted, but that won't seem sufficiently tangible to most people in cases of a re-count. On the other hand, it has been mentioned that voting among the young (who are usually not very attentive) would likely increase significantly with the addition of high technology ("yea dude, you gotta try the latest rad voting app, it's hellacool!").

Here in Canada, the current major opposition party is keen to get Internet voting in place so that they can have referenda on any and all issues at a whim without spending hundreds of millions on administration (yea, I bet they'll spend that much on the doomed software contract, but maybe I've been reading comp.risks too much). I'm not so sure we really want all the population voting on all the decisions though.

Finally (for me, for now ;-) there is the major question of accessibiltiy. I think most monks know enough about systems and hopefully about security to judge whether or not to use a new system themselves, and they would certainly have access, but what about the vast majority of the population who have no clue at all. Even though most now have good access to computers, do we want them using Win95 to cast votes on the Internet? Do they want to vote with their spouse/kids/parents/employers looking over their shoulder (electronically with monitoring software or physically)?

In summary, there are many other things more seriously wrong today than voting in North America, and I think we can certainly tolerate a slow and steady change in voting technology more easily than a rapid one - the risks of the latter are too great.

Those of you within range (whatever that may be) might want to catch this Sunday's Undercurrents on CBC TV here in Canada, which promises to look at technology trends in voting. It's usually an interesting show, if not technically deep, and Wendy (the host) is cute.

In reply to RE: Of Dead Trees and Democracy by Albannach
in thread Of Dead Trees and Democracy by brainpan

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