Is Voting Online Possible?

In this day when the Internet seems to fill so much of our lives, one might think that voting over the Internet would be not only possible, but a good idea. However, there is no online voting anywhere in the U.S. for our elections.

There are actually very good reasons why you cannot vote for an elected official over the Internet, security and fraud being the biggest ones.

Sadly, there is no way to prevent hacking and fraud with online voting. Imagine, if you will, a hacker being able to get into an online voting system and flooding the ballot collection program with false votes? With today's technology it would be hard to stop such a thing.

This is why, while voting systems in America do utilize computers and secure connections between the polls and the Secretary of State's offices, there is no open Internet system. The risk of hacking and fraud is simply too great.

There may come a day when Internet voting can be secure and safe from hacking and fraud, but we are not there at this time. So, thus far there is no voting online in American elections.