Editorial, Internet voting has promise, discusses their wish for Internet voting, but in the end correctly points out that it should be subject to “open to examination by the nation’s top computer experts.”
That is all that is asked by the Technologists’ Statement On Internet Voting.
But in the Connecticut Legislature is full speed ahead for Internet voting despite the opposition of CTVotersCount, TrueVoteCT, and the Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz. See HB-5903. Hopefully, the Office of Fiscal Analysis will point out the expense of whatever process is used for Internet voting for each of our 169 municipalities. Our earlier coverage.
Fort Meyers News-Press Editorial <read>
Opponents of Internet voting argue that security risks are too plentiful and blatant to ignore. They point to the threat of hackers and other forms of fraud, as well as glitches that could prevent votes from being counted or result in a miscount.
Those are legitimate concerns. Any efforts to expand the role of Internet voting must be vetted in the most public way possible, open to examination by the nation’s top computer experts.
But it doesn’t make sense that citizens can perform so many other vital transactions online, using Web sites that are trusted to be secure, yet can’t have a secure option for voting online – or at least registering to vote.
We agree that registration and even sending ballots to the Military can be accomplished. We are less sure of the journalists’ predictions:
Finding a way to incorporate one of the world’s greatest technological advances – the Internet – should only be a matter of time.
Sometimes technology evolves as we wish and sometimes it does not — remember Nuclear Fusion, Toxic Waste Storage…I remember a childhood friend that just kept smoking assuming “scientists will come up with a cure before I get lung cancer”. I hope he changed his mind and quit. Unfortunately, when we risk Democracy on an unproven technology the cure may also be too late.
