Americans will choose their next president by either voting in person, which could expose them to the coronavirus, or by sending a ballot through a postal system that may not be able to deliver them on time.
Is there a better way to conduct elections? Some other countries have tried alternatives, but they're far from perfect.
Since 2005, the small, tech-savvy east European country of Estonia has allowed voters to participate in elections online — a method of voting that's steadily gained in popularity. Last year, more than 40% of voters cast ballots by internet.
The system stands in contrast to the infrastructure in place in the United States, where more than 100 million Americans are preparing to vote in the information technology vs computer science presidential election by filling in a bubble on a paper ballot or using a voting machine.
Places like Estonia show the possibilities for conducting elections in the internet age. Yet experts warn that some technologies carry huge security risks — and even if there were more time to overhaul voting systems, internet voting in the United States should be avoided at all costs.
"If we could build a secure internet, there's many good things that could come out of it — and one of those things would be that we could trust it with our vote," said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. "But we haven't."
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