The Hazards of E-voting
A democracy can only be effective when it runs efficiently, when the will of the people is transmitted through the corridors of power. It can only hit its zenith if the most important function of democracy, voting, is carried out flawlessly. Although flawlessness has never been achieved, men have certainly tried to keep the voting system as efficient as possible, with the least possible amounts of votes being lost or mis-counted. Human error is of course, uncontrollable. This error combined with the partiality of all humans, prompted the development of machines that would register, store and count the ballots which were cast. Electronic voting, or e-voting, soon found advocates and lots of
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Computer scientists from coast to coast have warned that the machines sometimes err in counting votes and could be easily compromised by hackers intent on disrupting elections. In either case, they say, a manual recount would be meaningless if it was based on corrupted electronic data.5 A paper trail would be used to recount the votes if it were suspected that the machine was not giving an accurate count of the votes. "Most machines cannot print a so-called voter-verified paper trail, so when a politician demands a recount, most DREs will simply spit out the same set of disputed numbers again and again."6 Not only does this make it impossible to have effective recounts that could help in the event of a serious computing error, it also puts vote tampering into the spotlight. If a paper trail is non-existent then it would be much harder to detect if the votes have been tampered with. This brings into question the veracity of the programmers, is everything that they mention about the programs capabilities true? What bugs exists and have they been corrected?
Matt Zimmermann, an EFF attorney who is dealing with e-voting said,
"What we want to know is, what are these machines actually doing? How are these things programmed? Are there errors in the programming?"7 When casting
In John Fund’s reflection, the Department of Investigation went through a procedure to see how easy it was to commit voter fraud. The DOI had sent out agents to show up at 63 polling places all who “pretended to be voters who should have been turned away by election officials; the agents assumed names of individuals who had died or moved out of town, or who were sitting in jail. 61 instances, or 97 percent of the time, the testers were allowed to vote.” (Fund, pg 353) After gathering this evidence that voter fraud was possible and way easier than it seemed, they published a report which accused the city’s Board of Elections voting
Texas Politics. The University of Texas at Austin, Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services, 2009. Retrieved from http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/6_printable.html
“legal precision” about what is constituted a vote. In due course, the candidates, nor the
Many women and African American men had long dreamed to have the right to vote. In many states, they could only vote if their state allowed them the privilege. The dedicated men and women fought for their right to vote in the Civil Rights Movement in the early and mid 1900s. Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act to give African Americans the rights to vote. It would have not occurred if the Civil Rights Movement had not taken place. The Nineteenth Amendment would not have occurred either if not for the Civil Rights Movement. The freedom to vote is now held by a majority because of the fight by the people involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and the African Americans and women who fought for their right to
Industrial Countries all over the world have seen a steady decline in voter participation; Great Britain is a great example of this. The country has witness turnout in elections falling slowly as time pass. However, the election of 2001 dropped the country from their average of 76% voter turnout to just a 59.4% turnout. Comparatively, Australia, a former colony of Britain, has enjoyed high and steady voter participation since 1924 because of the implementation of compulsory voting. This system has proven to be not only effective in bring voters to the polls, but also effective in improving Australia’s democracy. By evaluating these two countries with similar political structure; one can see the difference in compulsory voting turnouts
Donald Trump, A president that will either make or break this country in the next 8 years. Suddenly people are wondering how the heck he got elected.He got elected through the electoral vote, the way this country has elected leaders ever since the start of the country, but is it really the best option for electing the leader of the free world? This paper will show why the electoral college is the best option for electing our leader and why it should always be the way we elect our leader.
But, as of today there is no solid way of knowing if someone is or is not trying to sneak in more than one ballot. “I don’t know if anybody knows how prevalent it is, because the only time you find out is when somebody gets caught.” (Guzman, 1) And the statistics of that happening is .00000013 percent or 26 out of every 197 million cases. Because there are multiple techniques that can and have been used time after time again. Although this is the case there has been some attempt to prevent it. Voter ID law are one example, but it is far from the perfect solution. First, it prevents only one type of voter’s fraud, voter impersonation. And, second, the voter’s ID laws has been ruled as discrimination; so the rule is not enforced everywhere and the public can vote without
With the Long Lines, the stressful waiting, and the constant question of asking yourself “why am I here?” on going in your head makes the waiting to vote the most exciting thing ever. But wait aside of that, think for a second. This year there were people going to vote even when hurricane sandy hit parts of their neighborhood, destroyed their houses or flooded several ways for them to get to their voting station, but they still voted. They’re is people who went to those voting polls and spent long hours putting whatever situation they were in aside and went to vote. They did so To fulfill their duty as a citizen, to make their voice heard and their vote count. This is why I think whatever the case maybe
right wing and the other left wing it will be very hard to predict or
When it comes to the topic of technology, most people will readily agree that it has been growing non-stop at a significant pace. About 16 years ago, technologies, such as computers were not a necessity in mainstream life. Since then, technology has progressed and people have become extremely reliable on. In the essay “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” by Amy Goldwasser, she talks about the positive aspects of the Internet. According to Goldwasser, “Twenty-plus years ago, high school students didn’t have the Internet to store their trivia”(Goldwasser 238). By stating this, Goldwasser explains that over the years the Internet has become a necessity in the lives of the majority of students today. Although the Internet provides sufficient
Many people keep complaining about how the government is a complete failure, but if you do your part and vote, you can make a change in the government system. Voting is your opinion on paper that could make a change in America on how a leader runs this country.
The internet is the easier way for people to communicate with each other. It has made the world smaller by bringing people together everywhere and any time. This invention has important tools for people to contact and it has changed their way of communication in today busy world. In fact people are becoming totally dependent on the internet as a way of communication in their daily life, business and work. The limitation of old communication tools has made the use of internet for communication is wider all over the world .
Less than 50% of eligible voters will turn out to vote at national elections, and at the local elections there are less than 25%. There is a correlation between voting behavior and the demographic of those voting.
There are many pitfalls and perils on the Internet. Some of them are easy to avoid while other are not so obvious. Some of the Pitfalls and perils are annoying, while others are deadly to your computer. Still others are humorous and entertaining. There are many dangers on the Internet. This paper will try to cover some of them.
Voting systems all around the world serve more functions than to only elect representatives for the people. Elections create a sense of a democratic environment inside a country; they give accountability and legitimacy to the government in power, assuming it is the people’s voice that is being heard. In a world where most countries enjoy democratic governments and freedom and equality are encouraged, Canada’s current voting system is a nothing but disrespectful to these democratic values. Like in many post-colonial countries, the legacy of imperial regimes has made its way to the modern political system in Canada, still attacking central democratic principles . Canada has been using a single-member-plurality (SMP) electoral system, also