voting

After several centuries of casting and counting ballots, it’s shocking that we still haven’t mastered what seems to be a simple task. But anyone who lived through the 2000 presidential election, in which a mishmash of flawed voting machines, contradictory county procedures, and unclear state laws in Florida led to the least reliable outcome in history, knows that 21st century voting is no better than the era when we shouted out our votes at the courthouse steps.

Former prime minister of Poland Jaroslaw Kaczynski told members of his conservative party that people should not be allowed to vote online because the Internet attracts those who like to watch porn while drinking beer. Why is he talking about this? Poland is considering new schemes to get more people involved in the election process, and online voting is one possibility.

It’s 2 a.m. on November 3. The polls have been closed for hours, but the election has yet to be called. Around the country, reports of snafus with new electronic voting machines have been pouring in; no one is sure how these problems have affected the results. In Maryland, machines failed to boot up, and voters were turned away for hours. In South Carolina, officials bought machines too late for adequate testing, and on many of the onscreen ballots, the presidential contest included names of candidates from local elections.