US official calls Tim Cook's voting on iPhone suggestion 'preposterous'
What's the story
Ohio's Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, called Apple's CEO Tim Cook's idea of voting on the iPhone "preposterous." Cook is "a classic example of one of these, kind of, elites, thinking they have a simple solution to a complex problem," he said. Per LaRose, technological competence to carry out voting online the right way may exist in future, but not now.
Mobile voting
Apple's CEO says technology can make voting easier
Georgia recently passed new laws for voting, which, according to many, are designed to reduce the number of people participating in an election. Cook, commenting on the new law, said on journalist Kara Swisher's podcast that it should be easier for people to vote, and technology can help solve that, suggesting that people should be able to vote on iPhones.
Identity validation
Voting on iPhones will make it hard to verify voters
As convenient as Apple CEO's idea sounds, LaRose says it is "more complicated than people realize." He points out that if people vote on their iPhones, voting officials would have to verify whether people are who they say they are via multi-factor authentication. Furthermore, the process would need to prove that the voter was actually the one holding the device.
People's confidence
Maintaining anonymity of a vote is also a challenge
According to the Secretary of State, the process should also be able to maintain the anonymity of the vote so that people can cast a secret ballot without having to worry about the vote being tracked by some government official. He says that if voting is carried online, it would be hard to make people believe that their vote was counted fairly.
Push back
LaRose says he will not allow voting on iPhones
According to LaRose, technology could do a lot of good things and that he believes in embracing it. However, he thinks using technology for voting is not viable at the moment. LaRose says that he will not allow voting on mobile phones in Ohio, not at least on his watch. While voting online would be easier for people, LaRose's concerns do seem valid.