Online voting, also known as electronic or e-voting, is a kind
of voting system which is based on voting via Internet ballots and telephone
votes instead of traditional voting involving marking with tokens in polling
stations. Nowadays, there is a hot debate as to whether we should use online
voting within a decade or not. In my opinion, online voting is
not a feasible option.
One of the reasons why we should not use the online voting system is some issues with the technology. Today's web architecture is too fraudulent and does not allow the internet to be secure while remote voting requires a very secure system. When a robust system is not provided, the voting system gets hacked easily. Hacking and tracing on the Internet by foreign countries with a conflict of interest is a common and growing phenomenon. For instance, the USA experiences constant cyber-attack traffic which usually comes from China and Iran every single day. In addition, big companies such as Google, Twitter even the Pentagon are hacked by outside forces. Therefore, online voting should not be on the governments’ agenda the necessary precautions are taken in the domain of secure technology.
It is important to recognize that e-voting includes vast possibilities of fraud. Voters can be forced and bribed to vote a certain way in favor of the candidate who offers a higher amount of money. Nevertheless, advocates of e-voting want to substitute online voting for traditional voting due to the fact that people can do various things online. For instance, they can shop, play and even bank, so they may defend the idea of voting online. With banking, a person can verify a transaction, yet this is not the case with voting. In addition, if the individual has trouble with online banking, the money can be returned. In contrast, if a mistake is found after an election, it inevitably causes a scandal.
The last reason why I am against e-voting is the inadequate protection of voters. For instance, Estonia is the sole country that has been using the e-voting system for a decade. All Estonians have a national smartID, scannable chip and PIN that provides them with an online identity. Due to the fact that the system contains all voters' personal information and their votes, in case of hacking, all the information can be grabbed and hackers can use this private information against the voters.
To sum up, nowadays the controversial debate concerning the online and the traditional way of voting is taking place in some developing and developed countries. There are many factors that indicate why we should not use online voting, such as an inadequate computer security system, a wide range of fraudulent possibilities and above all the danger of personal information grabbing.
One of the reasons why we should not use the online voting system is some issues with the technology. Today's web architecture is too fraudulent and does not allow the internet to be secure while remote voting requires a very secure system. When a robust system is not provided, the voting system gets hacked easily. Hacking and tracing on the Internet by foreign countries with a conflict of interest is a common and growing phenomenon. For instance, the USA experiences constant cyber-attack traffic which usually comes from China and Iran every single day. In addition, big companies such as Google, Twitter even the Pentagon are hacked by outside forces. Therefore, online voting should not be on the governments’ agenda the necessary precautions are taken in the domain of secure technology.
It is important to recognize that e-voting includes vast possibilities of fraud. Voters can be forced and bribed to vote a certain way in favor of the candidate who offers a higher amount of money. Nevertheless, advocates of e-voting want to substitute online voting for traditional voting due to the fact that people can do various things online. For instance, they can shop, play and even bank, so they may defend the idea of voting online. With banking, a person can verify a transaction, yet this is not the case with voting. In addition, if the individual has trouble with online banking, the money can be returned. In contrast, if a mistake is found after an election, it inevitably causes a scandal.
The last reason why I am against e-voting is the inadequate protection of voters. For instance, Estonia is the sole country that has been using the e-voting system for a decade. All Estonians have a national smartID, scannable chip and PIN that provides them with an online identity. Due to the fact that the system contains all voters' personal information and their votes, in case of hacking, all the information can be grabbed and hackers can use this private information against the voters.
To sum up, nowadays the controversial debate concerning the online and the traditional way of voting is taking place in some developing and developed countries. There are many factors that indicate why we should not use online voting, such as an inadequate computer security system, a wide range of fraudulent possibilities and above all the danger of personal information grabbing.
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