Should military voters be allowed to log on with a CAC and vote in their state of residence?

CW2 Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 05 May 2016 00:07:37 -0400

How easy would it be to create a website for military voters to log on with a CAC card and participate in voting for their registered state.

While military voters can mail in votes, we know that it doesn't happen for most. Or in some cases the mailed in ballots don't make it from the OCONUS unit in time to count.

Let's fix it.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made May 5 at 2016 12:50 AM

CAPT Kevin B. — Thu, 05 May 2016 00:50:52 -0400

Great idea. I've been out for some time but wonder if dependents have a CAC nowadays.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made May 5 at 2016 12:51 AM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 05 May 2016 00:51:16 -0400

That would be an excellent advancement! Perhaps we could someday have a national ID card system that would make those capabilities available to all citizens.

Response by SGM Mikel Dawson made May 5 at 2016 12:55 AM

SGM Mikel Dawson — Thu, 05 May 2016 00:55:37 -0400

But wouldn't that be "voter I.D.? (smart ass)
Seriously - Why not? I don't know if the States would still require a person to register before hand as absentee, which I think they would.

Response by Capt Seid Waddell made May 5 at 2016 1:41 AM

Capt Seid Waddell — Thu, 05 May 2016 01:41:37 -0400

Nobody has earned the right to vote more than our OCONUS military members.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made May 5 at 2016 2:12 AM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 05 May 2016 02:12:35 -0400

If states don't have internet voting for their other voters, I doubt they would pass laws allowing it just for the military. Plus each state would have to pay for creating and maintaining the website and servers. I'm not sure, but I thought I read that Oregon has internet voting. Since there are already groups concerned with hacking voting machines, I'm sure that some would say that internet voting could be hacked as well. I think eventually all voting will migrate to the internet, at least as an option, but it will be a long time in coming.

Response by CPT Mark Gonzalez made May 5 at 2016 5:45 AM

CPT Mark Gonzalez — Thu, 05 May 2016 05:45:44 -0400

Great idea if you could secure the site, but military members are predominately republican so good luck as no one cries when out vote is suppressed.

Response by Sgt Private RallyPoint Member made May 5 at 2016 5:53 AM

Sgt Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 05 May 2016 05:53:28 -0400

I would love that!

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made May 5 at 2016 7:11 AM

Capt Daniel Goodman — Thu, 05 May 2016 07:11:44 -0400

I would obviously admit thats a quite interesting concept; I understand the thoughts here about cost of servers, and the possibility of Internet tampering with votes, though I do have a few thoughts about that in thinking about the concept generally as you'd phrased the problem. First, military, while not the sole absentee voter group, would, I think, be one of the largest, as well as comparatively unique amongst such groups, in that their being away from a given elecotral and or voting location is certainly of course for a pressing governmental reason. Then, too, there's always the possibility of mistakes on data entry, though, once again, I should think that adequate safeguards could be built into such governmental voting websites to allow review and or corrections of entries to reasonably assure against the bulk of not necessarily all of such errors. One way I think of being able to at least reasonably ensure against onlinemvote tamperingmfor svc mbrs could be to actually let them vote online at their installations and or at any other nearby facility. That way, possibly the federal electoral commission might be able to arrange online for svx mbrs, whether CONUS or deployed outside the u.s. whether overseas or elsewhere. I was always obviously struck by the rather anachronistic dependence on mechanical and or written ballots for voting in the present era, especially given the new recent law barring paper scrips for prescriptions by clinicians and the insistence on wholly electronic prescribing now for absolutely everything. That however is rather a dichotomy, nevertheless, in that, for certain current technologies I was always struck by the possible desirability of maintaining more technologically primitive backups, e.g., Loran supplementing GPS if need be. And for broadcast TV at least maintaining older analog signal formats and or broadcast resolutions instead of doing everything according to flat screen LCD TV technical dictates. Gutenberg invents the printing press centuries ago, yet it's still in use, and even a pen or pencil has its place. I don't by any means think the problem is insoluble, I think the svcs could certainly provide a secure online voting environment for svc mbrs by all means, were adequate funds allotted to implement such a notion. Having to physically mail absentee ballots does obviously strike me as quite archaic , and I can understand the need for caution, and to minimize costs, however, when the svcs quite clearlqy have the most modern computing capability pretty much anywhere, I should certainly think that a bill requiring the Fed election commission or FEC to engineer such a voting environment for the svcs, and do so in concert with all of the various state and or territorial election governmental bodies, ought by all means to be a fairly doable proposition, by all means. I'd read something awhile back about trying to make the USPS for postal svc more cosdpt efctv by implementing data collection about e.g. road conditions and or weather using the Natl fleet of federal mail trucks, which just strikes me as similar in terms of being a data mining endeavor, no different, fundamentally, than implementing svc mbr voting whether federal state and or local at svc installations. Those are my thoughts such as they are, I'd be eager to know any other thoughts and or feedback, many thanks. I don't recall when I'd read the USPS story, I think it was a couple of years ago though I don't know if anything g ever became of it or if it ever actually went anywhere, honest, and merely pose it as an analogous project in data collection and or data mining of comparable complexity thats all honest many thanks.

Response by MAJ G Patrick M. made May 5 at 2016 7:18 AM

MAJ G Patrick M. — Thu, 05 May 2016 07:18:05 -0400

Great idea but do recall how difficult it was for the president to roll out his "Obamacare" website?

If you really want to take this on, I'd help you. We could build the site, contact DISA for guidance and sponsorship (to maybe get the site on the NIPR or maybe make it a .mil and installing the proper certs.) They could probably help with putting you in touch with voter administration, too.

Response by CSM Private RallyPoint Member made May 5 at 2016 7:45 AM

CSM Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 05 May 2016 07:45:59 -0400

Yes, please. If I can take such important training online like SERE 100 and Accident Avoidance, then surely there is a way to cast my vote!

Response by CSM David Heidke made May 5 at 2016 8:27 AM

CSM David Heidke — Thu, 05 May 2016 08:27:05 -0400

how easy would it be to create a website that anyone could log in with a CAC enabled state ID and vote from home?

Response by SSgt Alvar Lam made May 5 at 2016 9:41 AM

SSgt Alvar Lam — Thu, 05 May 2016 09:41:54 -0400

Is it possible?

Short answer: Yes. Estonia (the country that invented Skype) currently issues smart card IDs to its citizens, which allow them to vote from anywhere and file their taxes on average in 3 (yes, three) minutes. The CAC or PIV could operate in this same regard to validate voter identity.

Long Answer: Considering the political landscape of the US, not any time soon. The voting system would need to be completely razed and reconstructed to exist at the federal level for standardization and legal purposes. This would require a centralized national voting system and the political will to make it happen. The way things are now, voters are registered in their locality, under a local Election Board that reports results up to the state level. It might be hard to convince voters to hand this responsibility over to the national (federal) level, especially with the growing distrust of the federal government.

On the material side of things, you'd need to build the technology to make this happen. Voting portals with Public Key Infrastructure authentication and National Smart ID cards would need to be implemented. Of course, this voting infrastructure costs money. And funding notwithstanding, the National ID cards are never going to happen - just look at the REAL ID act as an example.