In today's era of Occupy Wall Streeters and Tea Partiers, it may be hard to convince some rightfully indignant Americans to "like" either candidate in this fall's election. Perpetually bright promises in recent decades, along with perpetually disappointing results, have led some Americans to question whether they should even vote at all.
But the fundamental mechanism of change in a free and democratic society is the right to vote for our elected officials. If people want change, they cannot merely bellyache and bemoan their fate. They must take action and vote for somebody.
The Census Bureau reported in 2008 that 131 million Americans turned out to vote in that year's presidential election. That may sound like a lot of people, but consider that the nation had about 304 million citizens, according to that year's figures. About 80 million of those citizens were not of voting age, so that leaves us about 220 million voting-age Americans.
In other words, about 60 percent of Americans who could vote in 2008 did vote. That may not seem bad, but consider that in other developed nations, like Sweden, voter turnout is close to 80 percent of eligible voters.
That's where the Internet should come in.
In my opinion, the key to breaking Americans' apathy is engagement. Recent efforts like the campaign to stop SOPA showed that Facebook can transform from a simple social networking tool to a platform for political action.
We live in a digital era, but our voting is still in the virtual Stone Age. Most of us have to drive during designated hours to a polling location. Many who don't vote miss out because they are working long shifts or face a long commute.
That's why I think voters need to be given the opportunity to cast their ballots on a secure, online platform. Here's where I propose something that may be controversial. I'd like to see the government partner with Facebook and allow voting via a secure Facebook app.
The state of Washington recently initiated a project that lets citizens register to vote via Facebook. Nine other states support some form of online voter registration, which is just a step away from voting, and I feel that online voting is a logical next step.
And as Washington State decided, Facebook is the perfect fit for connecting voters, given its ubiquity in the US. The government regularly contracts thousands of major technology firms to handle vital infrastructure. And when it comes to voting, you could not find a much more ideal platform than Facebook.
Each year, about 15 percent more Americans "plug in" to Facebook, and last year, the percentage of Americans enrolled on the platform was around 51 percent. In other words, there are probably as many American adults on Facebook as there are American adults who vote. What's more, 78 million adults regularly use Facebook on a mobile device.
Facebook has a number of advantages. First, it's preexisting. The government could direct users to a voting app with far less expense and overhead than other kinds of advertisements. Second, it's relatively secure. Users must list their real names and are only allowed one account. Account verification and security are both addressed vigorously.
It's tempting to think that Facebook voting could lead to more voter fraud, but that wouldn't necessarily be the case. There's plenty of voter fraud problems in the real world, too, so why should we jump to the conclusion that digital voting would be worse? It might in fact be less prone to fraud.
America needs to be a world leader in technology and allow voters to cast their ballots online. Doing so not only will increase participation, but also will allow Americans to connect with one another to discuss candidates and issues. And Facebook is the perfect fit for a secure, largely pre-built platform on which to place such an historic effort.
Drive time? Long lines? Weather? People will drive 30 minutes at 3 am to wait for a 6am opening of a Walmart to take advantage of a Day-After-Christmas sale in Bangor Maine -- but they aren't willing to do the same once every year or two to vote in local, statewide, and national elections?
Even with online e-tailing, people still make the Walmart pilgrimmage, and one would think they'd do the same with voting after all this time.
Well, its the driving time to the polling booth, long waiting lines before you get to vote and sometimes the weather that causes voters, who are half hearted, to decide that they'l do without voting. Internet would help that category of voters once the online voting comes to existence.
Can't agree more, Paul. We're all techies here and that might mean we'd dream of something like this, but it also helps us realize the many things that could go wrong, especially with how things are today. Increasing voter turnout isn't worth battling (impossibly) the security risks that online voting would pose.
In my country, voter turnout in the last elections increased dramatically. Why? Because the previous administrator was thought of to be corrupt, and one candidate seemed like the hero that would save the day. People wanted to make sure that the right candidate won.
rom a marketer's standpoint, if you want to increase voter turnout, it's just a matter of giving them a huge and relevant reason why they should. A lot of people don't vote because they don't think the results matter to them... that's what we have to change.
This is all predicated on the supposition that people in power believe that the current voter turnout is bad and that we need to do something to improve it. And that's dead wrong.
In reality, there are a *number* of efforts nationwie to *decrease* the number of people voting -- especially the young, seniors, poor, and minorities who might vote Democratic.
The New York University School of Law's Brennan Center has been following these efforts for a number of years, and the results should appall you.
The people in power certainly aren't going to be interested in making it easier for smart, educated, computer-literate folks to be able to vote.
Couldn't a similar type scenario be applied to home users? For example if they registered on their home PC, the system captures ID factors that identify that PC and the understanding is "must use same computer you registered from" Sure, some people may forget this and be at Joe's place, suddenly remember I have to vote and try from Joe's, without success, but it does seem a more promising prospect.
Yes, the computer/Internet issue is a large one (albeit getting smaller) but still a sizable number of voters are without one or the other or both. I'll play bdevil advocate and ask "what is so hard about going into town on Election Day and spending 10 minutes (tops) voting?" It's a great freedom we have and sadly is often taken for granted.
"the right of online voting would only be open to those who can access machines with the relevant capabilities."
Well thats an inherent limitation of the registration process through any internet platform. This can be an option for users surfing online who were previously least interested to vote and can now exercise their right without much effort. Obviously this option never means that people cannot register if they dont have internet.
Secondly, I am a supporter of hybrid authentification. I think authentication through internet should be corroborated by a mail at user's residential address or a phone call atleast. What do you think ?
Through facial recognition app, the person picture should be taken in real time (and not just a saved picture) and then the image formed should be compared to the picture in social security database. To authenticate further, few personal questions and a phone call may be adequate.
Thanks for the reality check, Brian. I can imagine, too, that there are practical ways of validating the identity of military voters using an appropriate network. As far as the general public is concerned, we need a way to validate identities for commerce purposes before we can think of extending it to elections.
You certainly don't want to compare fraud perpetuated with a Facebook voting app to that currently happening in real time voting. I can liken the Facebook fraud to a Tsunami like proportion while that of the real time voting to just a landslide. You certainly don't want a hacker living in remote China dictating the outcome of your presidential and congressional races.
We have discussed several times on this forum why e-voting is just a bad idea. Elections are a very important part of our democracy and we just can't trivalize them by a facebook 'like' or 'dislike'. The issue of voter apathy has always been part of our democracy and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I think for elctions in the U.S. it all depends on the criticality of the issues that are central to the election during that particular time. So haviong a voter tunr out of 50% during one elction cycle does not necessarily mean that it will get worse in the next election period.
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