Your Phone Just Got More Dangerous

Many years ago, I was attending the National War College and had the honor to meet the great Futurist, Dr. Alvin Toffler.  He was delivering a lecture to my class.   I became a fan of his mind-opening books, and while reading “The Third Wave” one evening, a particular statement jumped off the page. 

“I fail to see  how it is possible for us to have a technological revolution, a social revolution, an information revolution, moral, sexual, and epistemological revolutions, and not a political revolution as well . . .”

If you affix any validity to this argument, it follows that America is decades overdue for its corresponding political revolution.  We have experienced incredible advances in almost every aspect of our lives, yet we labor under a political system mired in the eighteenth century.   It’s a wonder that We The People have put up with what Toffler called “our political mausoleum”  as long as we have.  

However, just recently, there was a TED talk given by Bradley Tusk, a New York venture capitalist and political strategist.  Mr. Tusk introduced the audience to a new app that he has developed for our phones.  This free app will ensure secure voting from any of our personal devices.  There will be no need to visit a polling place ever again, and we can be assured that our ballot was cast as desired.   Isn’t it propitious that this development occurs on the sixtieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – the last significant advancement in voting rights for Americans?

Voting by Phone

 But this is a very dangerous development.  What if this capability should actually catch on?  I’m old enough to remember when folks asked what the heck we would do with a computer in our homes and wondered why anyone would want to carry a phone around with them everywhere they went.  Why, if Americans came to demand the ability to vote by phone, how long might it be before they demanded to vote on something more substantive than pre-selected red and blue candidates?  What if Americans decided they wanted to vote on some of the political reforms that we’ve been needing for so long? 

Undoubtedly, someone in Congress is already scheming to block this new capability, just like they’ve blocked term limits, the overturning of Citizens United, outlawing legislative gerrymandering, and every other reform that might save our fragile democracy.  Still, the introduction of Mr. Tusk’s app rekindles hope that our political mausoleum will eventually crumble under intense pressure from America’s New Revolutionaries.