Finally, I can vote. Thanks to VoteUSA!

Voting seems to be a very hard task. VoteUSA is an app that is supposed to make voting easier for most people and help increase voting. From their presentation, I learned that voting is a very difficult task. Many people aren’t registered to vote, don’t have the time to vote, don’t have means of transportation to voting location, or just don’t want to vote. This app will help combat the problems with voting today, and raise political awareness.

I particularly like how simple their app is; it is a basic layout that everyone will be able to use. Older people and younger people will be able to access all the features of the app. It provides instructions on how to register, for people who aren’t registered voters, by clicking on the link provided in their app. The identification process will come from people typing in the information from their ID’s or Driver’s License. The app also doesn’t only cater to one type of voting, so it will be accessible for voting on the local, state, and federal level. All in all, it caters to all the prominent hacks of voting, and it targets the common problems people suffer from when attempting to vote. On a different note, the upkeep and running of the app would be cheaper than traditional upkeep of voting machines, which is also an pro to this app.

However, technological problems arise when discussing such detailed, confidential  information that would be accessible digitally. One of the biggest problems would be security; how would the app overseers go about to make sure the personal information (ID, Drivers License, etc..)  is secure from hackers? The presenters explained that this should be seen to be as trusty as PayPal or any other digital purchase, which is not hard to imagine for the app. However, I feel that people would be more reluctant becuase this app would be so basic to use, but I’m sure with cooperation of the best security, the security aspect will excel. Also, questions arose about how the information will be stored. It was explained that the information will be stored in sites throughout the major cities, until the app kicked off and made its way to smaller cities. As this aspect of the app was explained, misconceptions about the cost of the entire project was addressed. The entire cost of maintaining multiple storage sites, the upkeep up the app, and the payment for employees seems to be costly, but it was explained that the voting polls that are used now spend millions of more dollars than this service would ever cost. To conclude, this idea is great, and can really change the face of voting.