2008 Election: Where are the computers?

In just a few days Americans will elect a new President and vote on a myriad of other offices, ballot initiatives and amendments. Here in Colorado the ballot looks more like the phone book than an actual ballot.

Since it’s 2008, we have an entire generation of voters who have never lived without computers. In so many states, those voters will have to vote using paper ballots because their officials cannot figure out how to use computers to count votes.

We use computers to communicate with people halfway around the world, to design the most sophisticated machinery in the world, to buy and sell and to send pictures of the grandkids. We have computers on our desk at work, in the den at home and on our laps in between. We have PDA’s on our belts or in our purses. We can use those PDA’s to access all the information we need about voting, but just not to actually vote.

The reason is simple. The same government running our economy, and both Republicans and Democrats can share in that debacle, can’t seem to find an efficient way to use computers to vote. Systems crash, or go so far over budget that the orders are cancelled. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on systems that just gather dust because they don’t work.

I guarantee that if they gave Bill Gates or Steve Jobs a call; they’d have something up and working in less than a week.

But that would make too much sense, something our government ran out of years ago.

-John
John W. Scherer
John W. Scherer is CEO and founder of Video Professor, Inc.
You can reach him at ceo@videoprofessor.com