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I believe they should. Look at President Bush's election. It all came down to that one state. How efficient would it be if it didn't have to be counted, and all the votes were printed out and all counted by a computer and were automatically transmitted through the Internet? How does that sound?
Electronic ballots are much more susceptible to fraud, though. It is much easier to hack into a database than to break into a polling place and put white-out on three thousand ballots. (Not to mention, that wouldn't really work.) I think nowadays, we sacrifice 'efficiency' to accuracy.
It's really simple to use a hard copy backup in the event of fraud. And given the track record of elections, fraud isn't any easier to commit using computers than paper ballots (or you could just use simple voter intimidation).
Fears over major or widespread computer fraud are generally unfounded. We've more or less had online banking for years now. The usual means of bypassing security measures of banks and credit card companies is not to hack their systems directly but to acquire the information off of people's personal computers with keylogging or through central databases kept by other entities with less secure systems (data miners for consumer profiles). One would think that a government agency could simply outsource security to a proven and effective agent. And then just use a hard copy paper backup (printed as or after a person completes their ballot) if there are major reports of fraud or statistical irregularities.
As a voter the use of a computer ballot is just too efficient relative to the costs for relying on solely on paper ballots. Accuracy is not significantly damaged if appropriate safeguards are taken. Measures which, in some cases, are not even possible with paper ballots (for instance a coded ID card to prevent multiple votes).
Hey there! Guess what? In the world of law enforcement it is a common saying that a lock is just there to keep an honest man honest.
If there is going to be election fraud, there is going to be election fraud no matter how the ballots are cast.
Guess what? We now live in the 21st Century – suprise, suprise – we have these neat little gadgets called electronic ballots that also print out hard copy's for confirmation and the voter can actually watch them being printed out when they have finished casting their vote.
Works for me!
That is just my not-so-humble opinion.
I say keep the paper the ballots, it may take longer and be less efficient but it I think it is the safest bet. Even if there is no fraud, electronic systems offer many other ways that can cause false results. Paper won't crash or have errors that cause us to lose the data, etc.
Maybe they shouldn't run the ballot machines on Windows then.
No, it needs to be flawless.
It would be freezing and everything. In fact, I've taken a few classes on computer science, and an operating system wouldn't be necessary at all to make this work. I think that we can eliminate a lot of error if we had a machine doing all the tallying up, instead of all these flaws that we get with people counting the votes. That is a risk I am willing to take.
Remember the 2000 Presidential elections with those re-counts? Imagine having it all electronic and having 100% accuracy. That could've prevented the war and everything.
Most of the people who work at the polls are senior citizens. I have nothing against them, but if we can be more efficient with electronic voting, we should. We can print out the results and also have it transmitted directly to the government.
2000 election. When they did the re-counts, it took so much time and the numbers kept changing.
Hmmmmmmmm . . .
For some unknown reason I cannot recall making that post above with my moniker on it.
And it does not have my usual shade-adorned smiley face attached . . .
Just my not-so-humble opinion B)