Technology, we're told, can and will make lives easier. That's true -- but only partially true. When it comes to elections, what happened in Iowa proves that our faith in technology has been misplaced. Robin Sears writes:
The debacle in Iowa, like the one that struck Democrats and Republicans there before, and most infamously the one that denied Al Gore the presidency in 2000, have one feature in common. The increasing reliance of American elections on electronics, not paper. Bytes not bits, as it were.
Yes, sometimes they have “hanging chads” debates where human eyes try to second guess a computer’s count. Sometimes they have an informal paper record of local votes by precinct captains. But rarely do they have the almost religious ritual and security procedures that protect the integrity of Canadian paper-based balloting.
Ballots can be stolen, stuffed, burned, and forged, yes. Even that’s hard to do in a system where they are protected by a praetorian guard of election officials. But they can never, in their thousands, be made to disappear at a key stroke. Or worse, be made to generate a different outcome and victor than voters intended — as malfunctioning technology or malign interference can do in a microsecond.
Technology can be useful. However, in elections, Canada has developed a middle ground:
A paper ballot remains the foundation, but it is often electronically counted. That count, however, is backed by a paper ballot and a paper tally sheet generated by the computer. Let’s experiment with online voting, but build it so there is a full reconstruction possible on paper.
When it comes to elections, we need a paper trail. And we need paper trails in other parts of our lives:
There is a reason that as heavily technologically dependent a nation as Japan favours cash more heavily than any other rich country. Yes, it is probably tax “management” in some cases. But mostly it is the security that comes from giving or receiving “real money” as incontrovertible proof of payment or sale. There is a reason that Americans cling to cheque writing more than any other rich nation. You sign a piece of paper yourself, and your bank is compelled to return it or a facsimile as proof of payment.
The underlying fear is often, bits versus bytes, once more. A bank’s computers can fail or be made to. Successful fraudulent digital transactions happen a lot. Or as we saw in the Libor currency trading scandal, verbal signals between conspiring traders can be transformed into digital fraud undetectably.
Of the billions lost to credit card fraud annually, how much would be possible with an ability to create an end-to-end paper trail of every step? Some argue blockchain technology offers the same level of accountability as paper documents, but millions of bitcoins have already been fraudulently traded successfully.
As with banks, paper guarantees legitimacy. As anyone who has lived through a Canadian winter knows, when the power goes down, lots of things don't work.
Image: CDPH-CA.gov
