Will we have online voting in our lifetimes?

[joncarlos]

Had an interesting discussion this morning. Will we ever reach a point where we feel secure enough with technology to allow/require people to vote online? What would be the impact on voter turnout? It's not like these electronic voting machines have been trouble or tampering-free.

I realize that access to the internet isn't exactly universal yet, though I know there are goals to make it so. For the true holdouts, you could always set up computer terminals where the polling places used to be.

[DMT]

If we can securitize online banking I see no reason we can't do the same with voting.

[TranaGreg]

If we can securitize online banking I see no reason we can't do the same with voting.

Agreed. Its a matter of public perception, not technology. Having said that, how could allowyou ever assure the public that the system is completely secure?

I would imagine anonymous would make it target #1 if it ever happens.

[OaklandA's]

One big difference between online banking is that voting is anonymous. If someone hacks into your financial account, and makes a withdrawal or a stocks transaction, you can dispute it and get your money back. But if someone hacks into the voting system and changes your vote from Ron Paul to Roseanne Barr, how would anyone know something was wrong?

Not saying that online voting can't work, but the security and transparency issues are a little different.

[joncarlos]

One big difference between online banking is that voting is anonymous. If someone hacks into your financial account, and makes a withdrawal or a stocks transaction, you can dispute it and get your money back. But if someone hacks into the voting system and changes your vote from Ron Paul to Roseanne Barr, how would anyone know something was wrong?

Not saying that online voting can't work, but the security and transparency issues are a little different.

I guess you could get some kind of unique ID when you vote (#123456789) and then you could publish a list somewhere so you could verify who #123456789 voted for. But then that would be vulnerable too.

Maybe 20 years from now we'll all have a universal login system for everything.

I agree, there are a lot of things to figure out.

[Hornsby]

If we can securitize online banking I see no reason we can't do the same with voting.

And bank accounts get hacked all the time...There's no way to do voting online and be 100% sure that there's not massive fraud. Hell, we can't even do electronic voting so it's flawless...look at MJ's post in the Presidential Campaign thread...

[joncarlos]

CNN had an article on this today

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/06/technology/innovation/online-voting-election/index.html?hpt=hp_t2_6