Wireless technology took its place in the election process last week.
I am not referring to Motorola’s Rock the Vote Mobile campaign either.
Still worth noting, Rock the Vote Mobile aims to use wireless technology to raise young adult involvement in the election, by polling views on issues and candidate preference on a bi-weekly basis via SMS and text messages. Participants will also receive mobile updates on political news, issues and candidates. Rock the Vote hopes to bring 20 million young voters to the polls in November through the program. Mobile-phone users can opt-in to the program at www.rockthevote.com/wireless.
Electronic voting made its premiere to mixed reviews on Super Tuesday as voters turned out to select the Democratic presidential candidate. The voting technology, from Advanced Voting Solutions and other vendors, uses a secure Wi-Fi connection for touch-screen electronic ballotting and significantly streamlines the process for election workers while also reducing chances of human error, according to the company.
The AVS system is reported to use several layers of encryption and another measure of security involves the fact that the actual voting data is not transmitted wirelessly for tabulation.
AVS assures its product is secure, but questions of vulnerability to hacking, jamming and software errors remain. Some polling sites in California asked people to leave cell phones and other electronic and wireless devices outside the poll booth just because of these unknowns.
Other software problems, unrelated to wireless, were also reported with the system including problems with incorrect precinct information being loaded and systems being down for hours at a time. Paper ballots were used in the case of such malfunctions, but some voters walked away amidst the problems.
Electronic voting proponents say the systems save time and money and eliminate potential tabulation problems such as the “hanging chad,” but skeptics wonder if a complete lack of paper records is a good idea. There is no way to verify the information.
It may not be the serious hacker or potential wireless device interference that pollsters should be concerned about. Programmers have also said that the voting system could be jammed simply by inserting a smart card in the system, shutting it down or eliminating votes.
Another opportunity and another to-do list for industry, as wireless boldly walks onto new ground once again.
