The Death of Voting Booths. America is Changing the Way We Vote

The 2000 election debacle in Florida – with confusing butterfly ballots, dangling chads, and contested recounts – motivated the United States to make major strides in modernizing voter registration lists and voting equipment. While those were important steps forward, the focus today has shifted from updating voting equipment to changing the way we vote. Using Qualtrics, we ran a study in Utah to understand voting preferences. We found that 21 percent of the Utah voting population prefers to vote by mail and nearly 20 percent prefer to vote by Internet. Of voters under age 50, one-in-four would prefer to vote by Internet. Interestingly, voters over 65 were most likely to prefer mail-in ballots. These voter attitudes, coupled with no assurance of federal funds to update voting equipment, make in-person voting seem like an endangered species and a shift to Internet voting seem like an inevitable reality.