Democracy is broken because the way we vote is broken. But there is a solution: Mobile Voting.
Gun Control. Abortion. From the halls of Congress, it may seem that Americans are bitterly polarized on the biggest policy issues of the day. But Americans are not as divides as we think, and polls show that most of us largely agree on even the most divisive issues. The problem lies in how we vote.
Politics is more extreme because only the most extreme voters turn out in primaries. And with politicians prioritizing reelection above all else, they shun compromise, feed this extremism, and get rewarded for it. If a lot more people vote, the views of the electorate become more mainstream, and our politicians and policies will shift to the center.
Mobile voting is the solution. We do just about everything on our phones, and yet we still can't use them to vote. But the technology exists, provides enhanced security over traditional paper ballots, and it could exponentially increase voter turnout by:
- Allowing Americans to vote from anywhere, on their own schedule
- Making voting more accessible for people who are not well served by mail-in ballots, such as voters with visual impairments and military servicemembers – and their families - overseas
- Providing more security than traditional paper ballots
- Incentivizing younger voters to participate by using technology they're familiar with
From Bradley Tusk, philanthropist and founder of the Mobile Voting Project, comes a deeply informative and timely analysis of our broken voting system, introducing us to the history, opposition, and potential of voting from our devices. Including essays by Martin Luther King Jr. III and other prominent political figures, Vote with Your Phone shows us that a solution to restoring faith in our representative democracy is right in the palm of our hands.
