Electronic Voting, May 6, 1999

Trying to come up with a way to encourage more people to vote, and make their opinions heard, I came up with something I'll call Electronic Voting. It would go something like this:

Every registered voter would have an identification card, with either a bar code or magnetic strip (something machine-readable).

Any store with ATM facilities, or credit card facilities with a satellite uplink, could have a Voting Booth (or booths) set up, where people could easily vote on current local, state, and federal matters. Public libraries, departments of motor vehicles, and post offices could also have voting booths, as could various other public facilities.

The voting booth would give the voter privacy from prying eyes, and the voter would be allowed to vote once, on any given issue. However, for each issue, there would be an option to not vote at the present time. Perhaps the facility would enable them to print out a receipt-type list of the currently available issues they have not yet voted on, so they could do further research on the matter, and be able to cast an informed vote.

As the deadline for voting on any particular issue passed, those expressing a wish not to vote at the current time, would be tabulated as having no opinion on the matter/no vote cast. In my idea of things, each measure, bill, or government office to be filled would have a set voting period, ranging from two weeks, up to perhaps six weeks.

Voting results would be sent directly to a centralized computer, and would NOT be made public until voting for that particular matter is complete in all states involved. This, combined with the longer voting period, would keep people in states with later time zones from becoming apathetic about voting for national issues, on the premise that "the rest of the nation has already decided the outcome, and my vote won't make any difference."

To further promote voter awareness, independent firms could create web sites(?) that give non-biased explanations of each side of an issue, in plain language that the general public can understand without having to wade through miles of legalese, or in the case of someone running for a government office, to clearly state their stand on various issues (http://www.vote-smart.org already has something like this, with their National Political Awareness Test).

These firms would receive 100% of their funding from something like banner-type ads, provided by a second, non-related company, and these ads would not be allowed to carry any political content. The voter awareness firms would not be allowed to take any sort of compensation from promoters of various issues or candidates. Instead, they would earn their costs by having more ad-views, and thus their focus would be to encourage more people to come to their sites and learn about the issues and candidates.

Competition in this arena would bring more benefits, because various sites would strive to have the most up to date and in-depth information available.