On-site Internet voting system enables voters to cast ballots on Internet-connected machines located at polling places. Remote Internet voting system allows people to vote from any device, a computer or cell phone, connected with the Internet. What if Internet voting were available in Ukraine? There would have been no fraudulent voting. The political crisis could have been avoided. You might say the same thing about the 2000 US presidential election, which, as some contend, was undemocratically decided by the Supreme Court in favor of George W. Bush. Is the Internet truly a democratic medium that would create a new electronic democracy and spread freedom around the world? Would the Internet democratize China? Does it matter when all we need from China is cheap stuff?
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Discussion: Internet democracy, Ukraine and China
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I feel that online voting is a good idea. However, it is not time to change the system over to it yet, because it isn't a perfect system. The voting system would not be safe from hackers and other people trying to change the votes. The easiest way to prefect the system is to use it. But that puts the democratic system at risk. An simple solution to this is to use the new internet voting system at lower level elections first. This will help us to find all the bugs in the system and not risk a national election getting messed up. I feel voter turn out would increase a lot if people could vote online. The people today live on the internet because it is a huge part of there lives. If this system was used in other nations such as the Ukraine it could have prevented the problems they are having now. However, this would only work if the system worked right and no one hacked into it. I do not think internet voting would change other nations such as china.
ReplyDeleteJoel Fredank
Internet voting would definitely make some governments a lot better. Ukraine is a huge example because the government in that country could change at any moment due to coups from different dictators. However, electronic voting should also be watched because anybody or any group could easily hack into the system and manipulate the outcome of the elections. The same for china because in china the government is not always as honest as it should be. It would also make it a lot easier for people to vote because they could do it in the of just being a home. A lot of people even in this country do not vote just because they do not want to make the trip to the polls and vote.
ReplyDeleteReuben Negron
Matt Poitras -
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Internet-connected voting machines is an interesting one. One problem is the potential for polling officials to track the votes of individual citizens by monitoring who enters which booths and what is contained on the ballots sent out from those booths. This could be used to intimidate voters.
In an ideal socitey, no one would tamper with cast ballots. I do not think that an internet-based voting system is fraud-proof, so you still have to worry about that. In fact, I think it is potentially easier to tamper with election results, as there is no paper trail that could be used in case people want to question the votes. Anyone with network hacking skills could intercept trasmitting ballots, or even the election database, and change the results how ever they choose. Voting fraud and other accidents have been alleged in the 2 recent US presidential elections where we DO use paper ballots. Some citizens votes were "lost" or remained uncounted. Without that paper trail, this could happen without anyone ever knowing.
I think the statement that there would be "no fraudulent voting" in the Ukraine if they used internet voting machines is misguided. Democracy only works when citizens have faith in it, much like the US economy/value of the US Dollar. Obviously, Ukrainian citizens do not have faith that their democracy works, and the Ukrainian government needs to prove to their citizens that the election results accuratly reflect their votes. With the proven penetrability of computer networks, and the well-know abilities of people to manipulate anything in the digital realm (I.E. the scandal over the fake beheading video that surfaced on the internet of a california resident), internet based voting would not be the solution to the problems of unconvinced voters.
I think the idea of internet voting is a good concept, however, it must be fool proof and secure. I think it will take time to develop a system of this caliber, and at some point in the future we will find ourselves voting from our homes. As others have said, i agree that online voting should be tested in a smaller, less important election to test out the on-site internet voting system. As far as Ukraine and the 2000 election are concerned the fraudlent voting was inevitable and this idea has to be one of the future.
ReplyDeleteB.J. Jones
I don't think the eloctronic voting would be the anwer to the Ukraine problem and or to democratiz3e china. There are alot of flaws about the interent. If there was elcotronic voting i think that the voting polls wouldn't be as acurate because you wouldn't know if people were voting more than once, and there are also hackers and idenity thiefs our there that would mess every thing up. I also don't think that the political crises would have been avoide in the Ukraine because voting over the internet doesn't seem like the safest way to cast a vote, and if someone wanted to they could hack were they kept the votes and mess up the votes.
ReplyDeleteYOu would think that with this electronic voting that there would be not problems and it woud be easy, but i think that problems will arise if we used this type of voting and then what would we do if the votes got messed up, take a revote?
Im just going to have to go with the flow here and say that internet voting is definatly far from being perfected and used on a large scale like the presidential election. Like it was stated earlier in one of the previous posts "It should be used in some smaller elections first then once the bugs are all out of it they could use it for the presidential elections." Right now it would be way to simple for any hacker to get into the system and mess up the voting. And it is for that reason that you cant say that if the internet voting was used in the Ukraine then there would be no fraudulent voting. especially sence it is known that most of the world best hackers come from that area of the world. And there is no way that it would democratize China. The government would never let that happen. THey may say they are turning their country into a democracy but i will believe it when i see it.
ReplyDeletei think online voting if properly regulated and secured is a great idea. there is far too much room in our current system for human error as well as fraud. while this can not be put into effect worldwide over night it is a realy good idea to look into and to start small and one day work to use it in full scale elections. we will never get away from going out to vote because not everyone has a comp. but this will make it easier and more convinient for some and for thoes without a computer they could go to comp labs or librarys or just go to vote as we do now. whie i do not think having this type of election would straiten out the prolem in the ukrane it would go a long way to making it a more clear cut election without coruption. one of my best frinds is from ukrane and she has been in NY protesting for weeks i see how much this effects her and the rest of the ukrane and it would be great if an idea like this could help future elections.
ReplyDeleteJames Carmichael