Senator Bill Nelson hopes to change the way we vote

Jacob Soboroff, Field Vlogger
Earlier this week on Sunday Soapbox we raised the issue of America's extremely low voter participation. Last week my Why Tuesday? colleagues and I visited with Senator Bill Nelson (D-FLA) in his Washington, D.C. office to discuss his sweeping plan to change the way and day we vote, and why he chose now to introduce his plan. Watch the video for his answers.

The Senator told us that, after discussing his plan with elections experts and others, he intends to bring his plan to Congress in the weeks ahead.

He announced the elements of his plan in his home state on March 27 with a press release. They were: 1) abolish the Electoral College, 2) establish rotating interregional primaries, 3) provide for nationwide early voting, 4) allow absentee ballots on demand, 5) improve vote verification by "requiring there to be a verifiable paper ballot to accompany every vote that is cast and it would require the elimination by 2012 of touch-screen voting machines" as has occurred in Florida along with decertification of such machines in other states, 6) fund pilot vote-by-mail and Internet voting, and 7) establish standards for voter registration lists.

The version of the plan Senator Nelson intends to introduce into Congress, he told us, will not include funding internet voting pilot projects. Because of security concerns brought to his attention since he introduced his plan in Florida, Senator Nelson believes "that voting by Internet is an idea whose time has not come," an opinion he shares with two election election experts I've spoken with, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen and Princeton computer scientist and public affairs professor Edward Felten.

7:17 AM ET | 04-27-2008 | permalink