Is Online Voting a Good Idea?

No matter how intent a person is on exercising his or her civic duty, the actual process of voting is cumbersome and inconvenient. Driving to the polls, waiting in line, losing  precious hours of work time, is hardly the image of patriotic zeal. In addition, despite some notable elections such as the 2000 Presidential campaign in Florida, most individual votes just do not matter too much in the overall picture. The Boston Globe brought up the Massachusetts governor’s race four years ago as an example. About 2.2 million people voted in this election. Thus, one individual’s ballot was worth just 0.0045 percent of the total vote, or less than one hundredth of 1 percent. Also, for smaller races when just a few thousand ballots are cast, any one individual’s vote is still just a fraction of one percent. However, the amazing thing about the American people is that in the case of voting, they act irrationally. There is little return for one vote, and yet people’s desire to participate in democracy prompt them to make it to the polls nonetheless.  Surely, online voting would be much more convenient for everyone.

However, the catch is that it would also be extremely convenient for hackers who want to alter results.  Everyone knows that University of Michigan students are obviously the leaders and the best, so when the U.S government wanted to test an online voting system for overseas voters, students at the University of Michigan were invited to try and fraud the system. Within 36 hours, they were successful in hacking into the system.  As proof, they had the system play Michigan’s fight song whenever anyone voted.

So online voting is not really a feasible option in the near future. Everyone, for now, must stick it out at the polls and know that even though a vote might not count for much as a percentage, voting is the only way that an average individual can have a voice in politics. Voting is a privilege that, while inconvenient, is worth the wait.

–Leslie Horwitz