TED Community » Brent Wittke

More About Me

I'm passionate about

What you do for yourself dies with you, what you do for others lives forever.

An idea worth spreading

iVote’s aim is to see that the voting process becomes simplified, convenient, and accessible to all citizens of the United States of America. Votes will be cast for our future leaders from break rooms, coffee shops, libraries, living rooms, anywhere, and everywhere. iVote will bring internet voting to every citizen, empowering each individual voice.

​Voting in the United States today is an inconvenient, confusing, and time-consuming process. This process is, and has been, a barrier to many who want to vote. There are over 207 million eligible voters today, of which only 56.8% were able to vote during the last presidential election, and 37.8% during the last non-presidential election. More votes were cast for the last American Idol-97.5M than were for our last President-69.4M, because it was simpler.​

The voices of citizens stationed overseas, traveling abroad, or those unable to take a day off work, cannot be heard under our current voting process. It is time for an alternative.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Direct democracy Vs Representative democracy. A network to connect and empower America with our US politicians and our elected leadership.

  Jul 3 2012: Andrew,
  
  Do not be discouraged. Posting an idea on a site frequented by critical thinkers will inevitably lead to the total deconstruction of your idea, down to the run on sentence. The fact of the matter is that people don't know what they don't know. You as well: you do not know what it would look like if this site existed, because there is no current frame of reference. If Orville & Wilber would have listened to every one that spoke like Philip here, they most likely would not have taken the risk, and our emergence to the sky would have been delayed.
  
  The future of our democracy is through transparency. A site where elected officials can log-in (if your will) to their constituency, review public opinion on current legislation and act accordingly. Where citizens can have access to reviewing bills, laws, measures, & amendments, that effect them and the world in which they live.
  
  I encourage you to start your ideas with "Why" why it is that you are doing what you do. Then the what and the how come later. Inspiration comes when you move or touch someone, after that the how disappears as it becomes far less important then the why. Look up this TED talk. "Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action", then reframe your idea and see if you achieve a different result.
  
  As far as online security goes, if we as a nation deem that it is important, then by all means it is secure. we trade $40B a day on the NYSE through an online database, 70% of the US population banks online, more shop online, we file taxes online, and if iVote-usa.org is successful, we will vote online during our national elections (You two should get together). Public Key Cryptography, Digital Signatures, and PIN's reduce online database vulnerability to almost NIL. Better then any other systems in existence.
  
  I look forward to your progress. I say "Why not!" - pay no heed to those that say "Why it won't", they are known formally as "Late adopters" and only jump on when the band wagon is nearly full.