Those are not valid reasons to change. Humans have been counting votes for thousands of years and doing a fine job. We don't need them counted faster; we have the results within a few hours counting by hand. The convenience of the computer is just that- a convenience. As much as you would like to think the Internet and computers are ubiquitous, there are enough people without either for it to be a concern. As long as hacking is not only a possibility, but a known issue, computer/internet voting should be banned. When a statistician shows proof of foul play, but the government refuses to release the records to be examined, there is a problem. A big problem. My fellow Americans don't seem to realize it is happening, or they don't care. Either way, with manual voting and counting it's a moot point.
It's far easier to maintain rigorous oversight with manual voting than computer voting. In fact, I will take that a step further and say that with our current technology, maintaining rigorous oversight over computerized voting is impossible. So, again, it should be banned.
You might want to address the arguments I actually made. I didn't argue that speed is important, I argued that accuracy is. Computer tallying is far more accurate than human tallying. Yes, people have been doing it for thousands of years but that doesn't mean we haven't looked for tools to improve our accuracy at recording and counting.
And yes, computers and the Internet are ubiquitous. They're everywhere. I acknowledged that there isn't 100% penetration but a lot of the people who don't currently vote have computers with Internet access, and a secure means of voting would increase participation which is no small concern. Democracy works best when people get involved, and the US has some of the lowest participation rates in the democratic world.
Yes, there are pitfalls involved with the technology, but they're neither unique to computers nor insurmountable. Elections have been rigged since humans first thought to put things to a vote. It's a matter of understanding the risks and doing what we can to mitigate them. Change is going to happen whether you like it or not, so we may as well do our best to recognize what risks are involved and start dealing with it sooner rather than later.
Those are not valid reasons to change. Humans have been counting votes for thousands of years and doing a fine job. We don't need them counted faster; we have the results within a few hours counting by hand. The convenience of the computer is just that- a convenience. As much as you would like to think the Internet and computers are ubiquitous, there are enough people without either for it to be a concern. As long as hacking is not only a possibility, but a known issue, computer/internet voting should be banned. When a statistician shows proof of foul play, but the government refuses to release the records to be examined, there is a problem. A big problem. My fellow Americans don't seem to realize it is happening, or they don't care. Either way, with manual voting and counting it's a moot point.
It's far easier to maintain rigorous oversight with manual voting than computer voting. In fact, I will take that a step further and say that with our current technology, maintaining rigorous oversight over computerized voting is impossible. So, again, it should be banned.
You might want to address the arguments I actually made. I didn't argue that speed is important, I argued that accuracy is. Computer tallying is far more accurate than human tallying. Yes, people have been doing it for thousands of years but that doesn't mean we haven't looked for tools to improve our accuracy at recording and counting.
And yes, computers and the Internet are ubiquitous. They're everywhere. I acknowledged that there isn't 100% penetration but a lot of the people who don't currently vote have computers with Internet access, and a secure means of voting would increase participation which is no small concern. Democracy works best when people get involved, and the US has some of the lowest participation rates in the democratic world.
Yes, there are pitfalls involved with the technology, but they're neither unique to computers nor insurmountable. Elections have been rigged since humans first thought to put things to a vote. It's a matter of understanding the risks and doing what we can to mitigate them. Change is going to happen whether you like it or not, so we may as well do our best to recognize what risks are involved and start dealing with it sooner rather than later.