Uncle Sam Wants Your ATM!

I read a little tiny story in the USA Today last week encouraging “real geeks” to go and find the new Bank of America ATMs and try them out. The story said that they have now perfected their ATM technology now that you can deposit a check without putting it in an envelope with a deposit slip. Now you just put the check in the machine and it scans it and comes back and has you verify the amount, etc. and then presto you make the deposit with that check right there in the machine in real time. While my eyebrows did raise a smidgen with the advancement, I have already been impressed with ATMs going all the way back to the summer of 1980 when I deposited my first check from Jeff Boat, Inc into the Citizen’s Bank ATM on 10th Street in Jeffersonville, IN. Everyone thought I was crazy. “You can’t trust one of those things”, I was told. “You gotta go in and let them stamp your savings book to be sure”. I have to tell you, in all the number of times I have used ATMs around the world, I have never, never, had a mistake. I mean never. And, I watch them carefully. So, that tells me, along with the newest technology that BofA ATMS now have, that we have the wrong people working on voting machines. Well, maybe it’s not the wrong people, since the same people who make ATMs also make voting machines (the guys that UTC are trying to buy), but it’s that we aren’t thinking about it right. Why are we trying to spend more time building voting machines when we already have everything we need in an ATM. It’s secure, it’s available all over the place, it’s got cameras, you need a password, you need a card, it tallies and posts back to a central location in real-time. What am I missing here? Try it this way. When I register to vote, my voter registration card is not a piece of paper, it’s a plastic ATM card with a magnetic strip on the back that carries all the information needed about me and my party affiliation, etc. It’s up to date at all times. I am given my voter access code/password with my Voter Registration Card (or I choose one). And now, it is election day (or election month, week, or whatever) and I go to any ATM anywhere in the country and I can put in my Voter Access Card. It knows where I am from, what precinct, etc. and it provides me a ballot to vote. I vote using the touch screen. The camera has taken a picture of me. The vote is registered. I can print out my receipt to keep. The vote gets counted. I didn’t have to drive to a polling station, stand in line, sign a piece of paper with my address on it, stand in line again to go into the booth, go into the booth, vote and then watch on TV that night about the irregularities of the voting machines and the problems with hanging chads, etc. Nor do we have to wait hours and days to count the votes. They are already counted the moment the voting time is expired. Tell me again, what am I missing? Let’s do this…get one of the banks to volunteer to test it! That’s right, let’s have one of our fine and upstanding financial institutions step up and offer their ATMs as a test. Imagine all the people who would vote!!! How great would this be?! Wait, is that why we don’t do this, is that what I am missing?