Routine Order

Estonia is all set to be the first country in the world to allow voters to vote over the Internet in a public general election! The system was tested recently where people could “vote” to choose the king of the forest from among 10 animals. They did not disclose the results, so we don’t know who the King is.

Interestingly, this small Nordic nation seems to be secure in its faith in technology:

The security angle of voting via the Internet has not raised many worries. “E-voting is not so difficult to think about here. We are used to using the Internet for business and for almost 10 years we have been using the Internet for banking,” he said.

Compare this to the US, where the diebold voting machines have caused enough problems and doubts repeatedly. I guess it is just a matter of trusting the provider - but then again, how much can you trust a company or organization that provides the internet-voting service? Just as much as you can trust the election officials in an “offline” election, I suppose. The distinguishing difference is that, offline, more people are involved in the voting and counting processes, so it is more difficult to game the system.

Estonia set for world’s first Internet election - Yahoo! News

So John Edwards joins the race to become President, and hires Scoble to Blog for him?

Great, you say? Well, wait a second. Scoble is a geek - he worked for Microsoft and was good at apologizing for the many shortcomings of the monolithic software giant. He was really good at dropping names, connecting with people etc. But, and that is a big “but”, he did it all for a software firm. Can he pull that off for a politician? I guess not, and here’s why:

Scoble is not really behind blogging tools, the technology and the stuff that goes with it. For one, his blog is hosted at wordpress.com, a service provided by wordpress. So you hire him, and you still need to hire a technologist - someone who can keep your blog running in the face of heavy traffic, and optimize and design it so it pulls readers by virtue of its looks and functionality. So why not hire someone who can do both things, or can at least advise on the technology behind it all?

Scoble is old, let’s face it - he’s got family. Passion is what pulls readers. Give me a twenty-something with fire in his guts for what he’s bloggin about, anytime. I hope you get where I am going with this train, ’cause its one of those freight-train like trains of thought - I don’t really know where it is going, but I’ve hopped on now

Lastly, Scoble’s skills covering technology are admirable, to say the least, and it is difficult to imagine he will put the rest of his blogging on hold, or even slow down temporarily, which means the Edwards campaign won’t get 100% from their blogger.

Call me a skeptic, but I can’t think of one good reason why a technology blogger will help you win a presidential election. Oh well.