USING TECHNOLOGY, COULD HAVE THE ELECTIONS IN USA DONE BETTER? - Marked!

 

 USING TECHNOLOGY, COULD HAVE THE ELECTIONS IN USA DONE BETTER

 

Technology is the way we apply scientific knowledge for practical purposes which includes machines like computers but also techniques and processes like the way we produce computer chips.

Elections are ways how people can choose their candidate or their preferences in a representative democracy or other form of government where the legislature chooses the government, usually by majority vote in the legislature. Some democracies elect a president, who then selects the government.

It was identified that in 2020 USA elections, two main ways of voting were used by citizens in casting their votes and these are; In person and by mail.

In person voting

In person voting it involved one attending to his or her local polling booth station to cast the vote and most people used this method because large and long lines were seen in Atlanta and Georgia were people greatly involved themselves in early voting this is because most states allow voters to cast their votes early at specific locations if they can’t make it on Election Day.

Absentee or mail in voting

Absentee, or mail in voting was also used by some citizens who were deeply scared of coronavirus, and this way of voting allows one to send a ballot from home without attending a polling station and this possible if an absentee ballot, a registered voter often has to request one through their state government were each state has absentee mail in voting and this was also used because many states relaxed their guidelines to allow more mail in voting amidst the pandemic.

By using technology, I think Elections in the United States of America would have done better as shown bellow

I think by the use of technology, USA elections would have done better in a way that technology was going to help people cast their votes on time, not like what we saw were people were standing in lines waiting for hours to cast their votes, which am sure technology was going to handle in just one day, since technology is able to capture a large number of votes in seconds, and I also think some people did not engage themselves in the voting exercise because of the deadly virus which is wiping people’s lives in the world. Of course some people wouldn’t like to use mail in voting system because some people don’t trust it since it was identified that Russia had helped Trump by hacking into the voter’s system that was used at that time so this also made some people not vote since they feared also exposing their lives in a highly populated environment of people voting which is one of the most ways how coronavirus spreads from one person to another.

Again I think embracing technology in last USA elections would have helped the candidates do much better because frauding of votes that is expected to happen during vote counting which I saw on CNN News were a group of people from the electoral collages counting votes that came through the mails. This is where we expect fraud to take place because someone may be bribed to add on the number of the counted votes he or she is counting, and if not through that mail service operators can also be used to add on the number of votes unlike in technology were the chances of getting in contact with the casted votes is almost impossible. Therefore, by using technology in last US election would have done better because human contact with casted votes is limited.

Score highlights per state, by using technology in the last USA elections as the only way to vote would have made the elections do much better because the technology is always in position to give accurate highlights on the scores of candidates if voting was done only through mails because there wouldn’t be any manually counting of casted votes, all votes would be counted immediately after being casted, but this time round the little technology that was used was not able to capture the votes casted through mails and those that were casted during early voting, because all the counting of votes stared on the day of voting so even the votes that were casted before the voting day had not been counted and which I think if the USA government had used technology during voting those votes would  not have stayed for long to be counted until the election day.

Although US state allows some electronic methods, paper ballots are the norm of the day across the country. A head of counting comes in were some votes are still being counted manually which consumes a lot of time. Therefore, by using technology I think USA elections would have done better because technology would have taken hours to do the counting hence easing working for the electoral college during vote counting and the citizens would be able to know early if the candidate they have voted for has won the election or not. And releasing of the results early helps the candidates to be sure that they have not been cheated which they always think that they have been cheated during manual vote counting which takes long to tally out all casted votes.

Receiving of multiple ballots through mails to one voter was seen in some bay Area in USA as shown below were a lady received two ballots in her mail showing the same names, this incited people about what was going on during voting period and at the end it was seen as cheating of votes. Therefore, USA elections would have done better if the mail technology was well secured so that only one ballot is sent to one voter hence making the elections do much better.

 

Undelivered mails of ballots, an incident was identified were a United States Postal Service (USPS) worker was caught on camera dumping mails in a trash near someone’s home and the trashed votes reflected 815 mail in box were found and this was seen as unfairness or cheating in an election. Therefore, if the electoral college had used technology all the ballots would have been delivered and counted automatically to avoid frauding during voting, transporting from postal service to the desired places so that they can be counted.

 

Conclusion:

As noted above, advances in technology can benefit both election officials and voters. Nevertheless, election officials must consider all voters in the jurisdiction. It is possible that not every voter will have access to new, cost-effective technological solutions. For example, using the Internet for voter outreach or for online voter registration is a step forward accommodating technologically advanced voters. However, for the voters without access to the Internet, these “advances” are invisible. Election officials need to consider these less technologically advanced voters any time the election office seeks efficiencies through technology. Therefore, technology would have been embraced in the last USA elections for the better results were frauding, manual vote counting and tallying would have been solved which has been seen as time consuming hence making results from the elections announced as early as possible.

Key words: Technology, Elections

Authored by: Nasasira Jossy

Reference:

• Technology in Election 2020
• https://www.independent.co.uk
• https://www.cnbc.com
• https://www.eyewitness news ABC7NY
• https://www.41 Action News