“Internet voting is unachievable for the foreseeable future and therefore not inevitable.”

“Internet voting is unachievable for the foreseeable future and therefore not inevitable.” [i]

The world is full of experts. Very intelligent and well-meaning people make predictions about our world every day.   And because we are all human, many experts get it wrong; and some in a very big way.

 

The quote above is from an article written in 2012 by the head of a reputable organization filled with a team of very bright people who think online voting is a very bad idea due to the inherent security challenges of anything / everything “online”.  They publish books, articles, speeches and YouTube video’s with the tantalizing headline of “We bank online, why can’t we vote online?”  (see my earlier post called “Beware of the Experts”)

Now I don’t have any personal ax to grind against these people and their well-meaning positions, but as an entrepreneur, I do know that those people that ask “why not” – the people that question convention – are the ones who change the world for the better.

Think Bill Gates, Sergey Brin & Larry Page, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and scores of others.

The past 100 years has been filled with people who refused to accept the status quo and frankly didn’t listen to the “experts”.   Here are a few of our favorite quotes from legitimate and well-credentialed experts (and boy are we glad they got it wrong 🙂).

“This `telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” – Western Union internal memo, 1878

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” – Lord Kelvin, British physicist, 1895

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” – Albert Einstein, 1932

“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” – The New York Times, 1936

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.” – Ken Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.” – Business mogul Lord Alan Sugar on the fate of Apple’s iPod back in 2005.

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, 2007

It’s for all of the outcomes above that we refuse to listen to the “experts” in the voting systems arena and it’s why we remain resolute in the pursuit of our mission – bringing mobile voting to the world!

It’s also why we are tapping into some of the greatest minds in the world – those that think like we do – to innovate with the crowd in building our mobile voting platform.

To hear more about how we are partnering with InnoCentive to develop the world’s most reliable, accessible and secure voting platform on the planet, join us on September 1st at 11:00 am eastern to hear our vision for mobile voting. Click here to register for our Mobile Voting Challenge.

[i] Communications of the ACM | October 2012 | vol. 55 | no. 10

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