An Election Redesign to Restore Trust in US Democracy | Tiana Epps-Johnson | TED

Election infrastructure in the United States is crumbling, says technologist Tiana Epps-Johnson, and, even worse, election officials are increasingly being attacked simply for doing their jobs. How can the country rebuild trust in its local and national elections? Epps-Johnson describes how the US Alliance for Election Excellence, a nonpartisan collaborative of election officials, technologists, designers and other experts, is working across all 50 states to improve the performance of systems serving 240 million voters, ensuring everyone has access to a fair, trustworthy and modern democratic process.

Follow TED!

[alexnaturalis]

"Elections have a problem".
"We should band together to solve it".
What's the plan, what are the tools, how are you going to do it, what's the timeline, how much does it cost, what have others around the world done? This TED talk added nothing to a challenging problem.

[TheCarnivoreSoprano]

If voting changed anything we wouldn't be allowed to do it.

[BadOompaloompa]

Lines down the block in order to vote...that's by design.

[madmanthepope]

You know and I know that certain states would refuse to join the alliance.

[namelastname]

voting via blockchain is the hello world program of blockchain

[robberger]

I heard so many distracting comments on what the actual problem is.

[TennesseeJed]

I think it's absolute BS that we can count billions of pennies every freaking second of every day of the year to everyone's satisfaction but we can't make a few hundred million votes add right.

[powerralley]

Blockchain technologies help solve this problem. Still not sure why we can't just vote through our smartphone?

[Knights_of_Zurg]

The biggest problem in US elections is that one person can spend weeks researching the issues, the candidates, and understand who would be the best person to solve the current problems...and their vote will get cancelled by someone who does no research, has no understanding of the issues, and votes for the other person just because they have a certain letter next to their name.

[pajor]

Safe election? When I went voting last time no one asked me to show my ID or checked my identity. How is this safe?

[thedoctor.a.s]

just in case anyone missed it, she talking about election administrative logistics.

[BruceBalistreri]

What fix is she exactly advocating for? I heard 0 substance...

[kyrar.j.]

Am I missing something? Or did she really just take 8 minutes to say we have a problem and not provide any specific solutions to fix said problem?

[Pahedi]

Cute but where's the proposal? I don't see her proposal for an actual overhaul of the system, which is needed. What about a central department to handle elections nationally? What about abolishing both the two party system and the very unfair way of voting and electing people? What about letting other countries, not only advise, but also check on the authenticity of the information? This video is useless without a real call to change and the realization that maybe the US needs to learn a bit more about the rest of the world instead of thinking they have the solution to every problem.

[haziel]

No political Ideology will ever save the world.

[jan-pieter]

Infrastructure is important but there are far bigger problems with the American Elections.
1 People are voting either democrat or republican, so the idea's of a candidate are not important?
2 The power held by a president is a non democratic structure, in its essence it is the same as in having a King or Emperor. The only difference between a monarchy and having a president can be found that people are voting for who that is gonna be. In the end every Democracy rules by a majority vote, having a president is not relevant at all.
3 The media circus surrounding elections, drama/gossip and random trashtalking is damaging the quality of american democracy. Idea's are not important, discussion is irrelevant. Spindoctors win the elections and not the ideology or plans and solutions for the future.
Having traditions is a great thing and America was the most democratic nation in this world but that time has passed, but the US could regain that position but only if they change the current democratic traditions. The biggest succes factor of the American Democracy was the power and freedom of choice it gave to its citizens in together choosing the best path for its country. Now its more like watching a sportsgame where supporters of both sides cheer for their team even if their team made huge mistakes.

[shuki]

The need for total transparency and oversight. There should be no reason to hide counting or keep it 50 ft away behind a barrier from preapproved representatives from both parties. And there is no embarrassment from learning from other western countries who never have election integrity issues. Oh, and I like that there is no central election system since that would lead to even more doubt and possibility for mayhem on a wider scale.

[cedarrockfirearmstraining]

Yes. Great job. Water is wet. Any solution?

[BadOompaloompa]

Except one of our political parties wants to destroy trust in democracy..not restore it.

[PongoXBongo]

What if we had an app that gave you concise bios on each candidate and their stances and allowed you to vote anywhere, anytime just by tapping their picture? Or any sort of modern, electronic voting that would allow accurate vote counting in real time?