We Can Bank Online. Why Can’t We Vote Online?
We Can Bank Online. Why Can’t We Vote Online?
Every four years, we start a mechanism up where about 130 or 140 million people go and do something all at once,” says David Becker. “What other business does that in the world?”
Becker, the director of election initiatives at the Pew Center on the States, is talking about the act of voting in a presidential election. “Think about how you set that up, how you get that all taken care of,” he adds. “Election officials in this country do a pretty darn good job.”
That said, Becker and Thad Hall, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, are both working on ways to improve the voting process over time. This past Saturday, they were panelists in “Political Machines: Innovations in Campaigns and Elections,” a symposium hosted by the National Museum of American History’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The event covered all aspects of the election; museum curators, historians, political scientists, campaign strategists, pollsters and policymakers discussed the role technology plays in advertising, campaigning and polling. In the final segment, focused on voting, Becker and Hall shed some light on the web-based and mobile technologies that could potentially change the way American citizens register and cast their votes going forward.
“Everyone would agree we want all eligible voters, but only eligible voters, to cast a ballot that will be counted,” says Becker. “That is a summary of what we want to do in our democracy. If the answer on how to do that were easy, none of us would be in this room right now.”