Electronic Voting is the Future of Democracy

Jack Plotkin
11 min readMay 4, 2020
Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

Over the past two decades, we have heard the same refrain from politicians, pundits, documentarians, and digital experts and it goes something like this: Electronic voting is hackable therefore paper ballots are the only way to avoid rigged elections.

On its surface, the argument sounds reasonable, especially when it is followed by a litany of ways by which electronic voting machines and systems can be hacked. This litany conveniently keeps all the focus on the problem and sidesteps the question of whether the proposed solution is appropriate. Yes, the security of electronic voting is a challenge. But are paper ballots the right solution?

Caves and Houses

The first houses built by people did not have doors. Yet, people did not revert to living in caves and posting sentries. Instead, they invented doors and door locks. The solution to unsecure electronic voting is to build a more secure infrastructure, not to retreat to paper ballots. To use a slightly more modern metaphor, the solution to an unsafe car is not a reversion to horses and carriages but automobile safety features.

Paper ballots are not inherently more secure by the nature of being written on paper. The history of electoral fraud is far longer than the history of the computer. Vote buying, ballot stuffing, intimidation, voter impersonation, ballot destruction, and miscounting have gone on for centuries. These methods are not just a historical footnote, but an on-going set of tactics used around the world by corrupt regimes, foreign actors, and criminal organizations.

Even in the absence of foul play, paper ballots are an anachronistic brake on the democratic process. Forcing people to go to a voting location that may be distant from their home or office, stand in line for hours, and fill out a piece of paper makes little sense in a world where everything else is accessible with a click.

Less than 50% of the eligible American voters between the ages of 18 and 44 vote. This means that fewer than half of the citizenry that most contribute to the economy in the world’s most democratic nation take part in the democratic process. Could this be, at least in part, due to the fact that our 21st century society is still using 1st century technology to record votes?

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Jack Plotkin

I have devoted much of my career to solving complex challenges through innovation across management, technology, and process.