Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Online Voting

I just voted online for the Board of Directors for my VanCity Credit Union. What a simple process! I verified my identity on the first screen, went to the second screen where all the candidates were listed and made my choices. I was allowed to vote for up to three candidates and I voted for two (old friends, lefties). The next screen had me confirm my vote and that was it! Democracy in action!

No driving several blocks, no waiting in line and I did it on my own computer from Laredo, Texas! Why can't they come up with a similar method to vote for our Governments? Send everyone on the voters list a PIN number and then for a reasonable period of time (maybe a week) you go onto a website and vote. People without a computer could do it from libraries or from kiosks set up in public areas like malls, soup kitchens, universities. You could even vote from work.

Maybe for older people or those who do not trust computers or those who are not on the voters list you could still have a physical polling place where you could register and get a paper ballot. Funny, I still talk of "older people" and here I am pushing 70.

Anyway, I want to vote online for online voting! I think voter turnout would increase and we would get a better idea of what the people really want. Plus, it is harder to suppress voters when you cannot confront people personally.


4 comments:

  1. On voter suppression: I was a poll watcher one year when I got a call that a fellow poll watcher was not letting people vote, challenging everyone as they tried to vote-a very big line had developed. I drove over to the polling station and did the cowboy entrance;" I hear they have someone here not letting folks vote" in the best bad ass voice I could muster. The lady holding up the voting was a church lady I knew from my hometown. No one knew her at the polling place as it was across the county from our home town-she was looking for a hole to crawl into from the moment she laid eyes on me. It was the Bush-Gore election, a dirty affair from start to finish.

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    1. If people knew even 1% of the crap that went on in that election they would lose confidence in the entire process, Norm!

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  2. Excellent idea! You should post this idea on the BC government website! Elections next month!

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    1. Yeah, right! I am sure the BC "Liberals" would jump at the idea. It matters not, come May they will be history. Of course we have to actually get out and vote if we want them to disappear.

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