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Digital Democracy…?

Hrm...

All I’ve got to say is…whoa.

Apparently, little Estonia – a nation previously known for the works of some guy named Arvo Pärt, a high number of Roe Deer, and for being really flippin cold – is pioneering the art of digital voting.  After a successful trial run of online voting in 2005 and 2007, the tiny Eastern European nation is now preparing to allow their citizens to vote via TEXT MESSAGE in their 2011 election.

Seriously.

Maybe it’s just my inner skepticism, but this seems like it might prove to be a tad accident-prone.  Granted, there does seem to be a level of security here: in order to vote via text message, a voter must first go and get a special chip to put in their phone.  Now, the theory is that this would make voting easier, and thus increase voter turnout.  The problem, however, is that – unless Estonians have entirely different voting patterns than Americans – the people who will take the time out of their day to go get the chip are the same people who would go vote on election day.

Still, the whole experiment brings up the debate that has been raging in America for some time now: are digital voting machines – or digital voting in general – better than traditional paper ballots?  Technically speaking, they sure as heck are.  Digital voting, after all, is – by definition – ten times more efficient than counting thousands of paper ballots.  It also saves trees, and can making the entire voting process faster.

That said, the reasons for the mistrust of voting machines is, well, we (or at least the American public) mistrust “human nature”.  For a variety of reasons (some sound, others a little paranoid), many Americans inherently distrust other Americans, believing that there are some “out there” who will inevitably attempt to hijack the voting system.  Truth be told, I understand that fear, but I also have a lot more faith in the American people – and in the decency of the average citizen – than I once did.  I actually highly doubt that anyone would take advantage of a digital voting system, and those that did wouldn’t and couldn’t do it in large enough numbers to make a big impact.

Now the logical counter-argument to that is that there are a LOT of elections where a little impact is enough to win an election, but does that mean that our current voting system is any more foolproof?  I mean, if the 2000 election was any indication, it’s that paper ballots can be just a fallible.

So, what do you all think?  Is digital voting the way to go?  Are internet and text-voting methods any better/worse?  Hit up the comments box!