Online Voting

It's conceivable in the future to be able to vote online. County web sites already have (at least mine has) a web site where you can go and look up your voter information. You have to enter your first name, last name, and date of birth. These are required fields. You can also enter the county where you live. How much more programming would it take to have the actual ballot on that web site? I don't think too much more.

All it would take is a separate login screen for just the ballot. You would enter the above information plus a one-time password. This password would be randomly generated by the county clerk's office. They email the password to you. Once you login with the password, your name, and birth date (actually the password is all you would really need since it is unique) and vote the password is erased so you cannot vote again. Online voting would also speed up vote counting. Once you vote online that vote is instantly counted.

There would be security issues for online voting. You don't want viruses infecting the web site or a virus or worm could prevent a person from accessing the web site. Then there are malicious web sites that use fake logins. Of course you would not want the ballot web site to time out on you. And you would hope the server load of the web site could possible take every voter in the county voting at the same time. It could happen. Another big issue is privacy of your ballot--ie you would not want other people seeing how you voted especially from someone trying to hack into the ballot database. You want to know your votes were being counted and also allowed to re-do your votes if you made a mistake. Here a "confirmation" screen would help. The screen would display who or what you voted for with a "redo votes" or "back" button and the "vote" button at the bottom of the screen.