Why Isn't This Standard - Internet Voting

What year is it?  If you guessed any time after 2000 then you may wonder why the United States doesn't already allow internet voting.  Al Gore gave us the great gift of the worldwide web and he wanted us to use it for good - like porn and voting!  We have mastered one, now onto the next - internet voting.

I think a lot of the younger generations would be much more likely to vote with this option.  Who wants to go out in the rain, or the cold, or the rainy cold to stand in line with a random cross-section of America to push some buttons.  It's basically like forcing you to be in an outdoor Walmart.  There is a reason people willingly avoid lower prices to not go to Walmart - it's because that's where the general public hangs out.  And good luck if you can actually find your polling location - even if you find the right school or church you still have to figure out the right building or room to go to which leads to a bunch of people wandering around a school - super creepy.

Another voting issue is that other than the really big guns, no one really knows what the candidates' platforms are which means most people are funneled only to vote based on the R or the D by their names.  What if, on the official US voting website, each candidate got to make a 90 second video that you could watch before voting?  At least then you would have some viable research option that is easy to access - a few minds might be changed at the voting booth.  Take it a step further - what if you HAD to watch each video?  More informed voters cannot be a bad thing.

The main worry about internet voting is hacking.  I am not an expert so I don't know how to fix that, but the cost of using all the polling centers across the nation and the collecting and the counting processes has to make up some of that cost.  Plus, who do you trust more - a security encryption internet voting model designed by the smartest computer geeks in the U.S.?  Or Beverly, the 90 year old who can barely see when checking your ID?

This year because of hurricane Sandy, New Jersey is allowing some people to vote online.  Let's hope it all goes well and we all get to enjoy the thrills of electing the leader of the free world while pants-less.

"If this was the ballot, I would vote for 'OF THE'."