Does it make sense to simplify our elections and allow voting by smartphone? It seems like a good idea on the surface, but would it be safe from hackers? Seems like we have an app for everything these days, what about a voting app? Well, this topic recently came up in our Think Tank, and a thinker said;

“I have to admit that it is very hard to trust the government and it gets harder every day. So I can fully understand the complications of giving the government more liberties, however I don’t think the voting app will continue to give away liberties than just going to a physical vote. The app is just a faster way to do it and saves the average American a couple of bucks in gas driving there and back.”

Regarding a ‘voting app’ and misuse; well although just a tool to improve efficiency and to see that a voting app would just be a tool for a faster feedback loop to the government and politicians, in one sense that would be a wonderful thing, in another it allows the government move faster. One of the reasons I think we have checks and balances is to slow down government change, to prevent government from moving too fast and catching people off guard.

In a large and complex system, stability is important and if things change very quickly and people are not sure, they stop spending and companies stop investing and we have problems. People who have done long-term planning can get caught up in rapid changes and lose their savings, and politicians can push their agendas faster, which is also a problem.

I guess it depends on how it’s used, and we wouldn’t know until we tried it. There are survey apps and survey apps out there but they are not used much, once they were sponsored by the government they would be used all the time – frequency of use matters, how often should they be used and for what kind of things What if citizens want to opt out? Don’t you vote? Don’t want incessant texting?

Then, like our electoral apathy, it would set in. What happens when the people vote and the government bureaucracy does something else anyway, which is often the case, even bills and laws in Washington DC are often the exact opposite of their name; The “Affordable Care Act,” for example, is anything but affordable. Think about this.