Electronic voting
So, I have a humble suggestion for making a good electronic voting network. What we need is widely deployed, hardened, secure, reliable computer terminals with some ability to identify the user. What’s that you say? We already have those, and they’re called ATMs? Why, yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking.
I figure there aren’t that many models of hardened ATMs, and they’re all X86 based. It would not be that hard to deploy voting software to them. While we’re at it, let’s use modern crypographic methods to make sure that our votes were really counted. The ATM can print a receipt with a signature that you can go look up to make sure your vote made it to the vote aggregation centers.
The government could issue a ATM-esque card to every voter, that they could use to verify their party registration, vote, etc. The way the current ATM network works is probably a perfect model for how to handle this. People who already have bank accounts could even just use their current ATM card to authenticate themselves, although that might be going a little far.
June 7th, 2016 at 8:34 pm
Our current system is completely nontransparent, generally nonverifiable, and means the people who cast the votes decide nothing and the people who count them decide everything. We clearly have the technology to make a good voting system – that we don’t have one basically means that the powers that be don’t want us deciding who represents us.. they want to decide, for their own reasons.
July 7th, 2016 at 3:03 pm
There is also the cost of deploying such a system. Sure, the hardware is commodity stuff, but it still isn’t free. Also, your last paragraph: I don’t think party registration should matter. And attaching voting to ATM cards, well, I have 2 cards, do I get to vote twice? And if the government is attached to that account, why not just make a single federal bank with one card for ID and finances and taxes and voting? Much more simple and easy to use. Better yet, no card, use biometrics. My favorite is palm-vein pattern, because it is similar in uniqueness to retinal patterns but less invasive.
I recognize that a large portion of my ideas on civil structure would operate best in new, intentional societies such as space stations, and may not be directly applicable to current society.