Should We Be Voting Via Smartphone?

DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs

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Pretty new touchscreen voting booths are nice, but if we truly want to get more people voting in this country, we have to make it much more convenient. A project that received funding from the Knight Foundation this week has a smart idea to digitize the absentee ballot and let people cast votes via smartphone.

Vote By Smartphone is the idea of a group called Long Distance Voter, which has been working on ways to activate a group of US citizens with low turnout rates called the Rising American Electorate: millennials, unmarried women, and black and Latino voters. Citizens in this group are very likely to own smartphones: 85 percent of them currently do, claims Long Distance Voter. So it makes sense to focus on an election solution that takes advantage of smartphone ubiquity.

But the real innovation here is not really a groundbreaking technology, rather, it’s a tech-savvy workaround to change to the way we do something that’s been around forever: Absentee voting. According to a report by Pew Charitable Trusts, more than a quarter of all ballots were cast by mail in 2014. In three states (Oregon, Washington and Colorado) voting by mail is actually the standard, and it has been proven that turnout has been higher because of it. But absentee voting still requires voters to fill out and mail a ballot, and in some places they must also print out the ballot themselves. It’s still cumbersome and wasteful, and people do make mistakes on paper ballots. What we need to do is fully digitize the process.

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Here’s how Vote By Smartphone would work. Voters would order an absentee ballot on their smartphone, which some states already allow as part of online voter registration. But they would also use the same system to vote right there on the phone, using an e-signature as an authentication system. Long Distance Voter plans to use DocuSign’s electronic signature technology, which is already used on other government documents. Voters would vote, sign, and “cast” their absentee ballots right from their phones.

Long Distance Voter plans to prototype this paperless voting solution in two states—likely California and Missouri—for the 2016 elections, but there are some barriers to widespread adoption, namely the fact that every state has different election rules. Some states might allow you to register and request absentee ballots online already. Other states don’t allow vote-by-mail as an option at all unless you have an excuse for not getting to the polls.

Will this improve turnout? It’s hard to say without seeing the actual process. Voting by mail is already pretty easy and that’s why so many people opt for it where it’s offered. It’s not very hard for me to vote by mail here in LA County at all, although I suppose that using my phone would make it easier. But are enough people familiar with DocuSign and the whole e-signature process to go paperless?

I guess one thing I’d like to see as part of this is an awareness campaign around absentee voting in general and a push for all 50 states to allow that with no restrictions. People can take their time with the ballots and vote weeks early, which is a very good thing. But it also makes life easier for election officials—states that have made vote-by-mail the standard say that it saves them quite a bit of money. This seems like an obvious solution that will streamline the process even more.

http://gizmodo.com/this-idea-to-get-america-to-vote-by-smartphone-just-mig-1719627058

I really like this idea and the fact we aren't already doing something like this in 2015 is kind of baffling. I can already here Republicans rallying against this idea though shouting about voter fraud, hackers, and the usual BS. But it seems like a good thing that would get more people active in the voting process. Honestly, it just seems like a no-brainer to me with how much it would save money-wise for the all involved. Of course, the traditional options would still be available. What do ya'll think about this idea?
 
Republicans shout about voter fraud with the system we have in place. And they're not even talking about the machines.

I honestly don't see this happening before the robot uprising. I mean, America's voting system is so backwards. Ironically using our phones would probably be more reliable and secure than the current voting system.
 
I've used absentee ballots for the past several elections. It's just super easy since I can actually research what I'm voting for. It's essentially the same thing but with far less dead trees haha
 
Hacking concerns aside, I think this is the best way to get as many people voting as possible.
 
Well, hacking is a real concern if the recent government hack which leaked millions of their employees private info is anything to go by then it will be of concern. And it raises a good question of how much of it will need to be a secure portion from the Gov and how much is it going to be the average Joe needs to have security software to prevent it from happening on their end? All smartphones have Bluetooth and that makes them super easy to hack if you are within range. Smartphone hacking has been on the rise ever since they took over most of our lives so it is a real concern. But it is possible to do this in a secure manner. Would be kind of crazy if this was implemented in all 50 states and then the President was some no-name write in person most people never heard of before
 
Smart phone voting? Sure, why not? While they're at it, they should allow anyone who owns a smart phone to vote regardless of their nationality or age. Vote as often as you'd like...who sees the potential for voter fraud allowing this? Not THIS guy.
 
Typical idiotic republican fear mongering. Technology and science are not the enemies, the sooner you get with the times and realize this the better
 
Haha, you say that yet every argument we have had I'm the only one presenting actual facts backed up with verified links. Whereas you seem to believe anything FAUX news tells you to think. Not even sure why you're on this site since you seem incapable of adding anything relevant to any discussion you partake in
 
Eh, I think that it could be the best way to get a lot more people to vote as long as you can do something like register your device or something so no one can vote on your behalf or any other type of voting fraud.

The potential is there for fraud but considering how useless a lot of the machines are, like the ones that cause random votes for candidates, it's probably a more useful system.
 
It's a great idea on paper, but I fear that it would get botched in implementation.
 
Smart phone voting? Sure, why not? While they're at it, they should allow anyone who owns a smart phone to vote regardless of their nationality or age. Vote as often as you'd like...who sees the potential for voter fraud allowing this? Not THIS guy.

And that would be the case if they didn't, oh I don't know, set up several very obvious safeguards ahead of time that only complete morons wouldn't consider instituting.

It would actually increase the ability for people to vote when they aren't able to get down to the voting station. It's not like they'd just take a city population and let random votes come in from everywhere until that city population was full then close the ballots. That's kind of insane and moronic. :whatever:

Do you vote? Do you understand the screening procedures that get done for the voting places before they get used? The ways that the current voting system is all ****ed up? The machines that were shown to be useless because they'd randomly choose other people than who you voted for? You seem to just yell that progress is bad then demand we try to bullhead our way through what we use when it doesn't work.
 
And that would be the case if they didn't, oh I don't know, set up several very obvious safeguards ahead of time that only complete morons wouldn't consider instituting.

It would actually increase the ability for people to vote when they aren't able to get down to the voting station. It's not like they'd just take a city population and let random votes come in from everywhere until that city population was full then close the ballots. That's kind of insane and moronic. :whatever:

Do you vote? Do you understand the screening procedures that get done for the voting places before they get used? The ways that the current voting system is all ****ed up? The machines that were shown to be useless because they'd randomly choose other people than who you voted for? You seem to just yell that progress is bad then demand we try to bullhead our way through what we use when it doesn't work.

Considering the problems they had with Obamacare roll out and still dealing with bugs here and there. Would you trust them to roll out a mobile voting platform? Paper ballots are fine, no reason to change it.
 
Considering the problems they had with Obamacare roll out and still dealing with bugs here and there. Would you trust them to roll out a mobile voting platform? Paper ballots are fine, no reason to change it.

Voter turnout is a big enough reason to change it. Also, the problem with paper ballots is they get lost/destroyed/altered, etc. It's just not a pragmatic way to vote anymore.
 
Smart phone voting? No. This isn't American Idol.
 
Considering the problems they had with Obamacare roll out and still dealing with bugs here and there. Would you trust them to roll out a mobile voting platform? Paper ballots are fine, no reason to change it.

Yeah, I can already picture trying to vote on election day and getting 'Connection error due to network load. Please try again later.'
 
Well, one would assume it would be done just like the absentee ballot and folks would have weeks to research and then vote. Of course, they could still do the traditional method for older people who refuse to change. I still think it's a good idea if they implement it the correct way.
 
I think we should have an intelligence test before you can vote.
 
I think we should have an intelligence test before you can vote.

Well, it doesn't help that half of the things on the ballot are worded in a way to try and trick stupid people. If you say yes for some things then you are actually saying no for it, crap like that. That's why I always do the absentee ballot so I have time to research things I may not be familiar with
 

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