I voted online in the Global Presidential Primary today run by Democrats Abroad (available in Spanish). It was very convenient, if a bit slow to respond (yet another crappy client-side Java application). As a computer scientist, I don't trust electronic voting – I know just how hard it is to write a bulletproof system. Hell, it's hard enough just to write a system that works most of the time. But the good news is that since most places now use electronic touch-screen voting systems, my vote is probably no more vulnerable than if I had cast it in person. When people started floating the idea of web-based voting back in the 90s we thought it wouldn't happen because the security and authenticity concerns were too formidable. Little did we know that the bar would be lowered so far that it wouldn't seem to matter much anymore.
4 comments:
Which state do your votes get attached to?
Democrats Abroad is treated as a "state" by the DNC, and gets eight voting delegates at the convention, an interesting case of expatriate representation. It's happening in many countries with large diasporas: Italy recently began doing it with its regular elections as well.
For the regular election I'll file an absentee ballot, currently for Georgia (my last residence in the US). It all depends whether the Coke & Pepsi parties nominate somebody for whom I'd want to vote, with a platform I want to support. I might decide to cast a protest vote (which would basically count the same anywhere) or I could establish residency in a battleground state.
Georgia could, in fact, become an important state, being a Southern GOP stronghold. A vote for Obama there would be a vote not wasted.
Virginia is now in the spotlight because of the dead heat between Obama and Clinton. They're looking to us to break the tie. And everybody I know (albeit in suburban northern Virginia) is voting Obama.
Obama would be an attractive choice, a vote I'd like to cast again. Other than him – I'll have to think about that some more. Nader's running again, as well as the spectacular Cynthia.
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