Election Ethics: How Technology Is Changing the Way We Choose Leaders - Essay Sample

Introduction

Since the emerging of technology and science, election ethics have changed. People find it difficult when they want to choose the right leader for election periods. Technology has been adapted politically as a platform that can be used to give citizen an open forum to give their political inputs and at the same time choose their leaders. Inline voting has been adopted across the world, as people have perceived the online voting channel as open and transparent. With the growth of the use of technology during campaigns and election period, in many cases, the election process has faced many challenges. Some people embrace the technology while others argue technology can be manipulated giving false information, which is a threat to any election. Technological innovations during political campaigns have been accused of negative things such as giving people the wrong impression of the candidate and technological malfunctions encountered during the voting process among others in the United States (Hersh, 170). In this study therefore online voting will be evaluated illustrating its advantages and disadvantaging from which a conclusive opinion will be given on whether its recommendable for adoption or not.

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The government should use technology to address the crisis in voting. The use of technology to downstream the results of any election can help evaluate political ethics since the outcome of elections affect everybody who voted in case of malpractice. Technology should not only be used but should be in line with government policies and political rules and regulations. There are different ways in which the government justifies the policies used during the election, such as the use of constitutions and task forces. The government also employs a specific framing of Article 25 of the international covenant on civil and political rights of every adult in America (Hersh, 167). There are several limitations when using science and technology in voting. These limitations show that the emergence of science and technology in the U.S. elections has failed to promote political ethics and social responsibility.

Limitations of Using Science and Technology in Voting

Many people believe that with the use of technology, the chances for unclear and incredible elections in America are limited. The opposite has been witnessed, and the use of technology has been driven by its fetishization rather than by severe assessment of its effectiveness. Some of the limitations encountered when using technology include: it creates significant opportunities for corruption due to lack of proper channels and open forum that can assess digital checks and balances. The lack of inaccessible technology server often renders an electoral process more exposed to rigging than it was before. Government and the electro bodies in charge are the only platforms that access digital servers used in an election; hence, the politicians can work with electro bodies to rig election unsuspectedly resulting to false results.

Another disadvantage is that technology carries significant opportunity costs, and this is seen where the new technology tends to deflect attention away from more "traditional" strategies that were used during the election. Technology is captivating and thrilling to use. When technology is proposed the other traditional paper ballot methods are considered less valuable and often are forgotten. The use of technology in the election has led to oversight of the traditional processes that were used in the election which although outdate were relevant and justifiable for use.

Introduction of digital devices for an election can be seen as fast due to direct vote transmission but often it has its complexities. Many occasions, the election officials encounter technological break down such network problem, devices malfunctions, and lack of voter's data, insecurity, and power problems. The election process is discrete and people expect no delays and malfunctions, presence of these an expected breakdown increase widespread suspicion of manipulation during the election process and often result to people denying credibility of the results.

The election of the current president of the United States, Trump, depended entirely on the use of technology. The president dominated his campaign through the use of social media like twitter. During the election of the presidential candidates, the voting process encountered a malfunction that was overlooked by the public. Addressing what happened during the election process will allow people to understand what happened and look at the way forward on the next election (Eaves, 418).

For instance, during the 2016 presidential election, the government encouraged candidates to maximize the use of technology, and they used digital devices to vote. The voting process was as a means of making the election transparent and easily monitored by both the people in America and the international communities (Eaves, 420). Before the election, many people could not accurately interpret the agendas lined up during the campaigns since mostly the people urged digitally, leaving behind those who did not use the Internet. After the election, we find that voting was considered inaccurate.

The Alarming Disregard of Science and Technology by Politicians

After the election, President Trump has an alarming disrespect in science and technology. Many of the elected leaders disregard science, making Americans find it challenging to acknowledge democracy within the country (Eaves, 421). As a result, monopoly companies like Facebook and Apple had faced a lot of challenges when they were sued by the European Union and paid a fine of $5 billion and $ 10 billion, respectively. When asked by the press what he thinks about the monopoly of the two companies' markets, the president did not outline any actions that can be taken to improve technology in the country to overcome the merger of the digital companies. In many cases, the president views the Big Tech Companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook among another giant tech as a weapon that people use to harass him and pass misinformation as a way of personally attacking him.

President Trump seems to be ironical when he regards the companies as biased against him. He does not have regard to Facebook and Twitter companies. Yet, the two companies acted as the instrumental in his campaign that helped him get elected in 2016 (Policy & ethics, para 2). The president used the Kremlin-orchestrated agents as a source of disinformation on his opponents. He also used the two social media platforms to air his views and agendas during his campaign. The president threatened the giant techs addressing them that incase the tech companies want to avoid the federal government interfering in their affairs, and the companies should do the president's bidding.

The disregard of science by many leaders is caused by the routine practice of meddling in petty science-funding matters to score political points (Policy & ethics, para 5 ). Many researchers have found that many of the American politicians are hostile to science. Some of the valued commodity in the field of science such as genetically modified foods, end of life care and energy policy has not played nearly as prominent a role when the informing debates are carried out by both sides of the political aisle. During campaigns, some candidates included the agenda of global warming in their manifestos. But after the election, they overlook all the actions that they will take to reduce global warming; instead, the debate on the ideas of terrains, among others. For people who vote to hold all the scientific truths to the required standards, there is a need to encourage the political leaders to demonstrate a respect for scientific facts in word and actions.

Politicians should look at how improved science, and as a result, they help America to overcome the growing ant science current. They should not turn their public view away from the antiauthoritarian ideologies of America's founders, which is science (Vox Contribute, para1). The result of the deniability of science by the politicians is that it is an existing habit that they portray after the elections. For instance, president, Trump tends to base his political arguments on the questionable assertions of facts making facts undervalue commodity.

The Election Crises

The significant challenges are voting crises and unethical practices encountered during elections, such as the rigging of the elections. Everybody has a right to participate in an election, as stated in Article 2 and 25 of the International covenant. There are several strategies that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights can use to address the challenges faced when using technology in the election (Tomas, 2)

The threats of integrity in the U.S election can be addressed by the use of cybersecurity and auditing before the election process. Another method for avoiding voting crises is by allowing voters to cast ballots via the Internet. These crises are witnessed when the election results are improperly tallied, causing the inaccuracy. On many occasions, the reported inaccurate results are caused by human error or inadequate oversight. The inaccuracy occurs when there is fraudulent voting. The idea of multiple voting, illegal voting, and malicious actors that affect vote counts by introducing mistakes in the recording and altering of evidence necessary to audit is made ease by the use of technology in the election.

Other election crises addressed by the International Covenant are disinformation campaigns, gerrymandering, among others (Tomas, 4). These can be avoided by deterring the voters of vital information such as voting locations, voting times, and voting processes as this helps to prevent manipulation of the information that may act as a way of misleading potential voters. On many occasions, those responsible for misleading likely voters usually affect remote voters by disrupting the mail or internet service.

They can also disenfranchise voters by altering the registration data. There is also the possibility of failures for the voting equipment or making the supplies of the equipment inadequate hence preventing vote collection. Because of the use of technology, hackers find it easy to interfere with an election or manipulate by the introduction of Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which is used to disrupt vote casting, vote tallying, or election audits. The DoS prevents access to e-poll books, electronic voting systems, or electronic auditing systems.

Strategies to Prevent Election Crises

According to the International Covenant, maintaining voter anonymity is one of the strategies that can be used to prevent the election crisis. Voters may not express their valid preferences if their anonymity is compromised. Ways that the anonymity can be compromised when the voters' fingerprints left on the ballot boxes are taken (Cheeseman, Nic, Gabrielle, and Justin, 1394). The anonymity can be maintained by dissociating ballots from individual voters through encryption of voter's data. The introduction of remote voting where voters vote via mails or the Internet is also the best way to maintain the voters` anonymity.

Introduction of election cybersecurity helps to avoid all the possible means of attack during the election process. It also prevents hostile way that some parties may act in an attempt to exploit vulnerabilities of the voters (Cheeseman, Nic, Gabrielle, and Justin, 1400). Through the practice of best audit processes, election officials can detect the tampering caused by those who intend to interfere with the election and correct the alteration on time. Cybersecurity also helps to build independent systems and help to overcome any threat that the...