Is the current voting method a thing of the past....we should hang on to?

I haven't posted in a while, but the last few days had me thinking about the republic and voting.  So, you are now uttering the words to yourself... "NOT another political post…please".  No this isn't about the President or who is running for the Presidency.  It's about a problem. A very simple problem.  The problem is; how we vote in America.  

When I went to work for IBM, I learned the history about the company.  If you have never seen this video, I encourage you to watch IBM Centennial 100x100 Video Here . The video is about 13 minutes long an worth every minute. Now if you don't know any of the company’s history, about three minutes into the video you will learn that IBM in 1936 started the Social Security project, deem the largest accounting project ever.   

OK, Dan...what does this have to do with what you wrote above.  

Well....in a word... PLENTY. 

You see, Mr. Watson had a simple moto to get problems solved and it was above the door of every IBM office…"THINK".   IBM didn't just say "We have a solution and here is the cost to implement it."  They took on this project and built it as they went. I wasn’t born then, but I am certain that there were mistakes make during the project. 

Is Social Security the best that it can be today?  There is room for improvement in any implementation of technology.  But Social Security(SS) is about 10,000 times better than its start in 1936.  By the way, today…you cannot do anything in this country without a social security number.  Think about that.  Your SS number is tied to your banking, credit history, payroll file at work and yes... your IRS file. 

As a person that has spent the last 30+ years in IT, I have seen a tremendous amount of advancement and change. And its advancement and change that are the only constant in IT.  And frankly in life as well.  Everything else is static. 

 So, let’s go on a history journey.  A journey about credit cards.  Now your thinking… where in the hell is, he going with this?  Read on. This will all come together soon.

 In our life time we have see companies like VISA® and MasterCard® to name a few, have major advanced in their business and how to protect consumers credit cards.  Just remember that in the early 80’s we were still using this machine to imprint your card number on a paper credit card receipt and had people sign it.  Those paper receipts would be deposited into an account at bank where the merchant would receive their funds from the credit company (less a processing fee of course).   

Think about when you or your parents when to buy something; Gas for the car, clothing in a department store (yes I said department store… I am showing my age now) or just buying necessary items in life. You had to imprint the card and then call on the phone to get an approval number.  That number had to be written on the credit card receipt.  This method became riddled with fraud.

When the card companies were seeing that fraud was becoming a huge problem they turned to technology for a solution.  And then magnetic strip was born.  The mag strip on the back of the card was read by… you guessed it, the mag strip reader that gave you the approval number (it was attached to a phone line and dialed the CC companies to get an approval).  But you still had to imprint the card and write the number on the paper receipt.   

 

Fast forward to the 21^st century, electronic payments; the internet; advances in microelectronics, thermal printers and the birth of the new age of the credit card “CHIP” or “EVM card” (Europay, Visa and Master card developed this technology).

OK… enough with the credit cards Dan…what is the point?

 Well, in most states the voting technology has been slow to adapt any technology.  Why you ask?  Well I heard an election commentator on cable say that “people want to know that the vote is valid and the count correct”. He continued to say that “the voters want to agree that when the count is done, everyone agrees that someone actually had more votes and that person is dully elected to that position…in total agreement with both parties”.

 The problems that we are seeing today is that there are too many hands in the soup.  There are too many manual processes in place when its time for voting.  I am not going to start down the path of whether or not there is voter fraud; ballot stuffing; ballot harvesting issues; incorrectly printed ballots…etc.  You can research those things and see for yourself that there are instances of all those things across the country. And if they are being investigated or not.   

 We need a better way to vote.  Period.  

We need to learn from the credit card(CC) companies that fraud can be reduced or eliminated in our election system. 

How?   Let’s start with issuing voter ID cards with photos and chips on them.  You must be crazy Dan… that will be a big undertaking.  Yes. You’re correct. It will be a huge project (just like Social Security was), but using the same methodology and systems that the CC companies use, these cards can be issued to everyone in 18 months or less. I will leave the how out if this conversation as there are a number of ways to leverage the CC companies to do this and to put the technology in to the hands of the states.  

 The federal election board needs to write a standard that ALL states must follow to get these cards in the hands of the legal voters.  Legal voters need to be citizens of the US… period. 

 Why do this?  Well why did the government require “REAL ID” on your drivers license to travel?  It’s to validate who you are.  So why wouldn’t we want to validate who is voting? Validation of an individual allows for accurate voter registration rolls and eliminates any chance that fraud could occur by impersonation, duplicate voting and other methods of fraud.  The states should require hospitals and funeral homes to notify the state board of elections when a person dies so that they can be removed from the voting registration list.  

The next part of this is to replace those OLD machines that require collection and to read the ballot counts from.  You can keep the machine…just replace the guts.  There needs to be technology in the machine to allow for electronic voting; a radio in each of the machines that is in constant contact with a central location, monitoring the machine’s health and collect the votes as they are being cast.   

 Imagine the art of the possible here.  A person inserts their voter card in the chip reader.  They cast their vote and it is then transmitted to a central location and it tabulated as they come in.  We then can have the election boards post a web page that shows the votes cast; how many people voted, how many people from the registered & validated voter registration list have NOT voted and what the delta is from those who have voted.  IN REAL TIME!

If the stock market can track in real time millions of transactions a minute and provide in real time for 320M plus transactions a cost average. We should be able to for one or two days a year, be able to securely vote and have an accurate real time count.  

 Think about the problems that can be solved if we just “THINK” through the issues that are occurring right now.  We all see the posts on social media, non-main stream media sites and other media; just how bad the election process is.  How antiquated and archaic the system is.  How easily it can be filled with fraud and deceit. By setting standards, implementing secure voter ID cards we can eliminate most if not all fraud in the current system. 

 So now you might be “THINK”ing…ok… how does this work for those rural areas, people in the military, seniors…etc.  Simple, you could have the ability to bring a hand-held voting device to them and use the buddy system. A Republican and a Democrat representative would be issued a single device to be use at senior facilities to provide the ability to vote.  That device could also collect video / audio so that the vote is captured, recorded and there can be no way for one of the “buddies” to influence the voter.

 For the military, the encrypted communication devices could be setup at any base and use their secure communication channels to transmit a person’s vote to a centralized voting system just for the military and have feeds come from that location back to the respective state systems.  

Yes, there would need to be paper ballots for some instances, but those numbers would be less than 1 million across 50 states and Washington DC.  

 Now I never have claimed to be the smartest guy in the room.  I have been very fortunate to have been a part of large IT projects.  Or have architected several large IT projects for plenty of fortune 1000 companies.  But in the matter of two hours, I was able to get these thoughts down in a blog post.  While I am certain that there are many details that would need to be added to my solution, it is a good foundation of a solid idea that is way passed its time to get accomplished. 

Things need to change for our republic to prosper, grow and to secure its future.  Its time to make changes and “THINK” about getting a solution implemented.  Our children’s republic depends on it.

 If you took the time to read this .. and have a real constructive comment… please reply.  I will delete the hate and non-constructive comments here.  This post is not about who wins or loses.  This is about the security of our republic; the constitution and the future of the United States of America.  Thank you for reading.