The Problem With Voting

Open-heart surgeries, space travel, organ transplants, and smart phones. Our country is among the greatest in the world for technological achievements. I am simply astounded with how far technology has traveled in my short 21 years of life. I remember when my home had its first computer, and how I thought it was simply amazing. But now, I have something with even more power and excellence that can fit in the palm of my hand.

How far we have come in such short time; it seems that the skies are the limit with how far we will go. However, I cannot help but wonder if are we putting this amazing brainpower and technological miracle-work to good use.

Are we so consumed by our consumer world that we only focus on what will bring us profit, such as phones, iPods, video games and travel? All these things bring us a form of revenue. I love these advancements; however, I think we are leaving some pretty large gaps that are left back in the ‘70s as far as technology.

As you all should know, we recently reëlected our 44th president of the United States. I am not writing about the election and am blaming no side, but making a general observation of the election itself, completely unbiased. I want to talk about the voting itself and how it is counted and decided, with one major point that I think is important.

Before the actual Election Day, many rumors and problems spread about polls being rigged and voting machines being tampered. Both parties have been accused of cheating the system. This to me is unacceptable. If we are able to do such magnificent things in the U.S., then how do we not have a reliable voting system?
I am not saying that President Obama won because of cheating, or that Romney tried winning with such methods. But we cannot deny that this sneaky cheating has been going on for many elections, with fake ballots, rigged machines and many other unjust acts.

One consequence of our voting system is the relationship it makes between the two political parties. Now the two parties are already tense and ready to take each other down, but when we start hearing about rigged voting, both sides become fierce and tensions reach an all time high.

Our country doesn’t need the divide between red and blue to become more severe. What we need is to solve some of the problems that come between the two. And the voting system is one.

The election is one of the most important things that occurs in our country every four years; it decides how our country will be run and where it will go forward. You would think this would take a high priority in the country, yet I see no technological advancements in the area.

Yes, we may have switched to some computer-run counting and machined voting, but they still have their flaws. A man just parachuted from space, but we still need to have recounts? A recount should never be necessary in my opinion - if we had a reliable source.

Maybe the system will never be perfect, being that there are some horrible people in the world who find cheating okay. But I think we could make some major improvements, we should take the time to create a great voting system and make the tensions of the political parties maybe a little less intense.

I know it is hard to count millions of votes. But when I download thousands of songs, Skype my friend in Australia, and can Google almost anything under the sun, it makes me feel that we are not trying our best during the election time.

Holland is a senior majoring in Apparel, Retail Merchandising and Design.