Should online military voting be legal?

[Meeker]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/topstories/story/613838.html

Yet another reason I love my state.

[Alcon]

Kind of funny, I was just reading this.

Internet voting is a lot less scary when it's only <1% of voters.  If it were like half...then I'd have trouble even considering supporting it.

[dead0man]

Yet we have no problem banking on the internet.  Why do you (anybody) think that is?

[Alcon]

Yet we have no problem banking on the internet.  Why do you (anybody) think that is?

There are plenty of phishing-related issues with online banking.  There are also identity theft Trojan horses.  The Russian mob even got involved with them.  They generally aren't widely-distributed worms, because widely-distributed financial fraud is totally pointless.  A worm that infected 100,000 computers would guarantee more visibility than any identity theft artist would ever want.  It would make the chance of any long-term success virtually nil.

My doomsday scenario is a widely-distributed worm that does nothing but change the ratio box (or whatever) when the vote is submitted.  Easily written.  A "black box," in the sense that there's no third party to communicate with, endangering the set-up's viability (like with online banking.)  And totally unfixable.

[Lunar]

How did ninety million soldiers vote for "Azn_Sk8er42" and is he our next president?

[Bacon King]

How has online voting worked in Estonia?

[MasterJedi]

People complain about vote rigging and then want this?

[perdedor]

Frankly, I would prefer to see ballots become less technological. Paper ballots are the best route.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Frankly, I would prefer to see ballots become less technological. Paper ballots are the best route.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Optical scan = perfection. Easy to use, easy to count, but also recountable.

[Meeker]

Guys, this isn't a discussion about which voting system is better. The point of the internet voting is because military mail can be so slow that is sometimes disenfranchises military voters. What would you prefer - possibly disenfranchising some military voters or letting them vote on the Internet?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Guys, this isn't a discussion about which voting system is better. The point of the internet voting is because military mail can be so slow that is sometimes disenfranchises military voters. What would you prefer - possibly disenfranchising some military voters or letting them vote on the Internet?

The answer to that is, as you rightly imply, obvious. Disenfranchising them is the obvious thing to do.

[The Mikado]

Ah, electronic voting.  The bad news is that we'd likely have ended up with President Paul.

[Lunar]

Ah, electronic voting.  The bad news is that we'd likely have ended up with President Paul.

Or Barack Obama

[Matt Damon™]

Soldiers lean republican or militarist wing of the dems so no.

[Alcon]

Optical scan = perfection. Easy to use, easy to count, but also recountable.

Electronic can be recounted too

This isn't relevant to military voters either way obviously

No system is "perfect," don't be a doofus

[dead0man]

If you're going to disenfranchise anybody it might as well be the ones in position to die defending* the rest of us.  We're America after all. </sarcasm>

Anybody that would purposefully keep a group of people that tends to vote opposite of them from the polls is a douchebag of the highest order.  Sadly the comments were from people we allready knew were douchebags.




*I'm not saying any of the current wars count as such, which is why I worded it the way I did.

[Franzl]

No.

Either ballots need to be sent out earlier to these places, or the soldiers should use the postal system of the country they're living in. (I know that's not possible in war zones.)

But hey, this proposal concerns not only military voters but also other citizens living abroad, and I can say that I'd rather get and send my ballot the conventional way.

[perdedor]

Guys, this isn't a discussion about which voting system is better. The point of the internet voting is because military mail can be so slow that is sometimes disenfranchises military voters. What would you prefer - possibly disenfranchising some military voters or letting them vote on the Internet?

Those aren't the only set of options, you know? Ballots could always be issued sooner...or, god forbid, we could actually provide an adequate postal service for our soldiers. Either way, I'm not comfortable with voting being done in a way that is susceptible to any bored 15 year old.