Should the United States adopt an electronic direct democracy? I am split on
this topic as follows. I believe in the ideals or a direct democracy but not
using electronic methods.
In our political system candidates run based on their pre-determined views on
our major political issues. However these candidates require backing from
corporations and other sources to fund their runs for election. This funding is
quite necessary because without it they have no chance to campaign and be heard.
So when they are being funded, these funds come with a catch. If a corporation
or group is going to fund a candidate they will do so with their best interests
in mind. Their best interests are now transferred to the candidate and if they
are elected must now vote accordingly. I believe that there is no way that a
candidates views and those funding them are always in line which leads to
candidates not truly being able to stand for exactly what they want to
accomplish. In a direct democracy we the people can vote directly on all
initiatives without the need for a representative who has had to play the
political game to achieve office. This, in my opinion would lead to a more
direct correlation of the public's wants and needs being addressed in voting.
As for using electronic methods I do not believe there is a secure or correct
method for it at this time. As a professional in the IT industry I am quite
aware of the hacking of several companies. (Sony, Zappos, etc.) I'm sure you've
all heard of the hacker group, "Anonymous". They are basically hacking whatever
they want at will. How can we say there is a secure way to use electronic
methods to vote with this going on? If you need further evidence check out the
link below. Here are a couple of highlights from the article.
In regard to current electronic voting methods: 1. There is no proper way to
do a recount on these systems. 2. There is no way to know if the software that
runs DREs is correctly recording votes, and we’ve seen numerous cases of
software errors, including errors that have resulted in lost ballots. 3. In a
number of state-level technical reviews of voting systems, of which I have been
a part in California and Ohio, we have found serious vulnerabilities in each
voting system we examined. (My point exactly on the ability of hackers)
http://blog.law.cornell.edu/voxpop/2010/09/01/electronic-voting-and-direct-democracy/
