Has it occurred to you that the computer runs our lives today, but we still seem wedded to voting in person or through the obsolete postal system? Why don't we completely convert to E-voting online? Such a process also works better for pandemics, bad weather and other challenges faced by citizens. Should also be cheaper.
The first stage of the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was created half a century ago during the Cold War to develop a system for disseminating information after a nuclear attack. Their work allowed academic and research organizations to share information with the Defense Department. All this effort led to what officially became the internet on 1 January 1983. Thus, theoretically, the technology has been available for nearly 40 years to vote online.
Turns out one country has already taken this step, Estonia, while Switzerland, German and Norway are experimenting. Estonia is a small Baltic country of 1.5 million, about the population of Hawaii, and became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. They deployed digital identity in 2001 and partially introduced electronic voting in 2005. In 2019 44% of ballots for their Parliament were cast online.
To summarize:
- It took some time to gain a mindset with confidence.
- The system is fully transparent, where every citizen can check who has accessed their private data, and any misuse is automatically red-flagged.
- Instead of a centralized system, there are hundreds of servers running on different software.
- Thus, if anyone wants to hack into the Estonia system, they would need to get through all those servers with different security codes. And accomplish this within a microsecond.
- One flaw of sorts is that it might be impossible to totally keep voter identity confidential.
- There is no standard country-wide ID system. Here, I think the Biden Administration missed a golden opportunity by not instituting a national COVID-19 vaccination electronic passport.
- Second, there seems to be an absence of trust. Whether it's hacking by Russia/China or partisan politics or fear of a scam, the nation is just not ready for online voting today.
- For one, the younger generation is ready for it.
- Then add on the shame of Donald Trump to the shenanigans of Republicans in Georgia and regular gerrymandering occurring across the country, and you would think the general populace would want a better system than what we have today.
- Yet, there remains an old-fashioned feeling that voting in person is something that is a cherished tradition, sort of comparable to many citing a Constitutional right to own guns. Times have changed, but some stick to an anachronistic past.
- Like fusion always being 30 years away from commercialization, online voting could well share a similar fate, but something that is only always a decade away from reality.
I show these meals because friends seem interested in what I eat. Every morning for nearly 15 months now because of the pandemic, I get delivered a papaya with breakfast:
Every five weeks 15 Craigside provides a lau lau dinner:
I add my enhancements, poke from Foodland and ikura from Marukai:
Sometimes the TV-watching can ruin your meal, for #1 Hawaii lost to the University San Diego, a good, but eminently beatable volleyball team. I thought our season was over, for this has been the fate of Hawaii teams in the past. We do well all season but get passed over for the NCAA championships. I nevertheless did have some haupia, or coconut pudding.
Then Sunday morning I found out that not only was Hawaii still alive for the final seven teams tournament at Ohio State next week, but rated at #1, which gives them a first round bye. Hot dog and baseball for lunch:
The Hawaii baseball team beat University of California at Davis for four in a row this weekend. So the cuisine and sports success made for a victorious weekend.
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