Like the horseless carriage 100 years ago, Internet voting is coming to the USA. Not only is it convenient and green, but security has been proven manageable by e-commerce. Security scares are dispelled by speaking Reason to Fear. The little known Original Intentions of our Constitution’s Framers for presidential elections are explained. How poorly US practices live up to those original intentions is shown next. Readers will be surprised to see how Internet voting, rightly organized, can fulfill those original intentions better than the two-party system is currently doing. This Internet voting system can even neutralize the power of Big Money in all US elections. Democracy in the US can be enhanced immensely. The Conclusion provides suggestions for action.
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Dr. Kelleher earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1984. He earned his BA and MA from San Francisco State. His first book, The New Election Game, was published in 1987. Inspired by R. Buckminster Fuller’s idea of voting by telephone, Dr. Kelleher showed how US elections could be organized around telephone voting. Of course, this was before the “PC Revolution.” After the rise of the Internet, the emergence of Internet voting seems inevitable, and the organization suggested in The New Election Game has been adapted to facilitate that emergence. Dr. Kelleher’s second book, Progressive Logic, shows how the political reforms advocated by Progressives throughout American history are expressions of “the natural order of values.” This order of values is a part of human evolution, because the human brain evolved in community. While humans naturally see human life as precious, social conditioning can override this natural tendency. However, if the natural order of values is articulated as a set of principles, which this work does, self-destructive social conditioning can be reversed through education. Internet Voting Now! Shows how our election system can be designed to serve the people who must live with it, rather than exploit and manipulate those people, as the two-party system now does. Having systems that serve people is consistent with Progressive Logic. Dr. Kelleher has taught political science, American Politics, and citizenship in the Los Angeles area for over 20 years.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Internet Voting Now is most apropos in addressing America's political conundrum. Dr. Kelleher explains how internet voting has the potential to alleviate the extreme partisanship infecting our national political process. I agree with the author that internet voting is the way of the future. Fears of excessive voter fraud using the internet, expressed by some of its critics, have a tendency to be too poignant. Voter fraud is a specter that affects every voting system used to date. Advanced technologies possess the wherewithal to counter various means of voter fraud, making the internet a safe, rational and convenient way to enhance citizenship participation.
Based on the possibilities of internet voting, the author outlines a presidential election model that would remove the influence of money while strengthening ordinary voters' involvement in the selection process. Using the internet, the author's model is quite feasible in making President Lincoln's dictum of a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" a reality.
The impediments are not technical or structural but are posed by the political parties and the politicians benefiting from the current money-driven election system. The question is how to change an anachronistic system when the power to change the system rests with the beneficiaries of this system. Change will only come when sufficient public pressure is directed at the political parties, the national and state legislatures.
The book represents an effective tool to raise public awareness and educate voters of the possibilities to challenge the current money-driven political process and institute a system in which each citizen will have a prominent voice and a real investment in our democracy.
Based on the possibilities of internet voting, the author outlines a presidential election model that would remove the influence of money while strengthening ordinary voters' involvement in the selection process. Using the internet, the author's model is quite feasible in making President Lincoln's dictum of a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" a reality.
The impediments are not technical or structural but are posed by the political parties and the politicians benefiting from the current money-driven election system. The question is how to change an anachronistic system when the power to change the system rests with the beneficiaries of this system. Change will only come when sufficient public pressure is directed at the political parties, the national and state legislatures.
The book represents an effective tool to raise public awareness and educate voters of the possibilities to challenge the current money-driven political process and institute a system in which each citizen will have a prominent voice and a real investment in our democracy.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is part history and part advocacy. The historical part of the book is itself twofold: a discussion of the original intent of the Founders to prevent the spirit of faction, or party, from taking control of the government and a recitation of events culminating in the failed effort of the U.S. Defense Department to institute a system of remote Internet voting for its overseas personnel.
The advocacy part features the author's proposal for a series of televised debates and Internet-based voting that would produce what he feels is a better outcome in electing a president, one that would counteract the influence of the Citizens United decision allowing for unlimited corporate spending on behalf of presidential candidates.
So the book is paradoxical, calling for a return to an older set of values and, at the same time, for employing the latest in electronic technology to the most basic of political acts, voting.
At first glance, the proposal for a series of state, regional, and national debates to be followed by Internet voting to winnow the field seems a bit impractical and doesn't take into account the many obstacles to its implementation. On closer examination, however, one can see that this proposal seems to have already been used in practice, in the countless Republican primary debates, followed by detailed polling of potential voters. In an odd way, the author's proposal seems to already have been put in place, albeit with pollsters collecting feedback on the candidates, rather than an Internet voting system that collects and aggregates the preferences of actual online voters.
The subtitle of the book refers to eliminating the influence of the Citizens United decision on presidential elections, which the author believes could be done by instituting the debate-and-Internet-voting system he recommends. By highlighting this relationship in the title, the author has rightly called attention to a phenomenon that has, in fact, played a significant role so far in the 2012 election, decimating Newt Gingrich's support in Iowa and then, giving him an impetus himself in South Carolina. The author is to be commended for calling attention to the centrality of Citizens United in the electoral process going forward, and for his clarity and passion in advocating a return to fundamental American values that he wants implemented using the latest technological advances, in the form of remote Internet voting.
The advocacy part features the author's proposal for a series of televised debates and Internet-based voting that would produce what he feels is a better outcome in electing a president, one that would counteract the influence of the Citizens United decision allowing for unlimited corporate spending on behalf of presidential candidates.
So the book is paradoxical, calling for a return to an older set of values and, at the same time, for employing the latest in electronic technology to the most basic of political acts, voting.
At first glance, the proposal for a series of state, regional, and national debates to be followed by Internet voting to winnow the field seems a bit impractical and doesn't take into account the many obstacles to its implementation. On closer examination, however, one can see that this proposal seems to have already been used in practice, in the countless Republican primary debates, followed by detailed polling of potential voters. In an odd way, the author's proposal seems to already have been put in place, albeit with pollsters collecting feedback on the candidates, rather than an Internet voting system that collects and aggregates the preferences of actual online voters.
The subtitle of the book refers to eliminating the influence of the Citizens United decision on presidential elections, which the author believes could be done by instituting the debate-and-Internet-voting system he recommends. By highlighting this relationship in the title, the author has rightly called attention to a phenomenon that has, in fact, played a significant role so far in the 2012 election, decimating Newt Gingrich's support in Iowa and then, giving him an impetus himself in South Carolina. The author is to be commended for calling attention to the centrality of Citizens United in the electoral process going forward, and for his clarity and passion in advocating a return to fundamental American values that he wants implemented using the latest technological advances, in the form of remote Internet voting.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
(I read the Kindle version of this book several months ago and you can read my review of that version, which I wrote at that time. Internet Voting Now! Here's How. Here's Why - So You Can Kiss Citizens United Goodbye! That review is more in depth about the book. I am not going to repeat my thoughts from that review here, but am going to add additional ones. FULL DISCLOSURE: I am an advocate of online voting.)
If you want to read and retain any source material at all about the subject of online voting, you have to buy this book.
Most subjects have plenty of must-read books that readers can begin their research from. That is NOT the case with Internet Voting. There simply is not enough reliable material out there whatsoever. You can't include articles, discussions or (worst of all) typical junk in the comments sections online because there isn't enough balance in the coverage and treatment of this very important subject.
Why doesn't online voting seem to get a "fair shake" in the blogosphere? Read Bill Kelleher's book-you will find out.
What is the history of online voting that led us to where we are today: where advanced countries all over the world are turning to internet voting with great success, while the U.S. seems to remain in the dark ages? Buy Bill Kelleher's book and you'll learn and understand what happened.
You may ask "Is this book some overly dry technical analysis of a "computer science" subject that will bore me to death?
Bill Kelleher is anything but boring. The story of internet voting is not a technical one, but a political one. It is also a very dramatic one. Bill helps us understand how a combination of very powerful special interests and very threatened Luddites have continually blocked any movement this country has tried to take toward using modern technology to advance our election system.
Why does this all matter so much?
Internet voting matters because it can break our country away from elections with low voter turnout, particularly among young voters, forever. Internet voting is about access. Internet voting is about democracy. Believe it or not, despite the noise and the fear-mongering on the subject, internet voting is also about secure, verifiable, auditable, and ACCURATE election results.
Will reading this book leave you feeling sad about the state of internet voting in this country? It most certainly will not. "Negative" is not Bill Kelleher's style.
This is a book about hope. This is a book about change.
You WILL NOT REGRET reading this book!
Cyber The Vote!
If you want to read and retain any source material at all about the subject of online voting, you have to buy this book.
Most subjects have plenty of must-read books that readers can begin their research from. That is NOT the case with Internet Voting. There simply is not enough reliable material out there whatsoever. You can't include articles, discussions or (worst of all) typical junk in the comments sections online because there isn't enough balance in the coverage and treatment of this very important subject.
Why doesn't online voting seem to get a "fair shake" in the blogosphere? Read Bill Kelleher's book-you will find out.
What is the history of online voting that led us to where we are today: where advanced countries all over the world are turning to internet voting with great success, while the U.S. seems to remain in the dark ages? Buy Bill Kelleher's book and you'll learn and understand what happened.
You may ask "Is this book some overly dry technical analysis of a "computer science" subject that will bore me to death?
Bill Kelleher is anything but boring. The story of internet voting is not a technical one, but a political one. It is also a very dramatic one. Bill helps us understand how a combination of very powerful special interests and very threatened Luddites have continually blocked any movement this country has tried to take toward using modern technology to advance our election system.
Why does this all matter so much?
Internet voting matters because it can break our country away from elections with low voter turnout, particularly among young voters, forever. Internet voting is about access. Internet voting is about democracy. Believe it or not, despite the noise and the fear-mongering on the subject, internet voting is also about secure, verifiable, auditable, and ACCURATE election results.
Will reading this book leave you feeling sad about the state of internet voting in this country? It most certainly will not. "Negative" is not Bill Kelleher's style.
This is a book about hope. This is a book about change.
You WILL NOT REGRET reading this book!
Cyber The Vote!
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