We have seen it many times over the years. It is government funded attempts at trying to take quantum leaps in technology with computer equipment. It is usually just a disaster in the making. Technology moves too fast. Computer equipment will often be out-of-date when delivered. And it can also be used as an excuse for no action at all.
But we have to move with the times. Ontario is considering limited use of computers as the answer to the escalating costs of voting. That only makes sense if we dramatically lower costs, improve voting access and ease of voting at the same time. We should have been moving to the Internet and the adoption of highly secure systems a long tine ago. We need a voting system where any computer with access to the Internet can be used to vote and any government or public server system in the province can help distribute the voter database across the province.
There are very simple technology solutions for distributed records that are date and time stamped and unchangeable after the citizen votes that are quite inexpensive. You should be able to vote at a polling station, at a public library, at your office, in your home and even from your smart phone. And the results can be available immediately to everyone on the closing of the polls.
And keeping the system of voting at a low cost can allow for run-off elections to allow for majority choice in all electoral districts across the province. As people are seeing in the current Canadian census, millions of people really can use a computerized system in a short period if there are enough server systems available.
It is also by using multiple server systems that we can ensure the security of the voting system, Hacking of a single system is theoretically possible but simultaneously hacking of multiple systems is not currently possible.
Despite the security and speed of Internet voting, Elections Ontario plans to only use computers to access the already computerized voter records to authorize the provision of a paper ballot. They then want the ballot to be scanned, stored and then counted electronically. Why would they want to go to the expense of scanning equipment when it is much cheaper, easier and faster to input the information directly in a computer? It makes no sense.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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