We lost a lot when we quit going to the polls to vote in person. We traded convenience for ceremony and the sense of duty and responsibility one feels by taking time on one special day to make decisions about how we want to be governed. The goal appears to be getting everyone to vote rather than emphasizing history, civics and what good governance is or can be.

In the end though, the machines that count the ballots have to be secure. You are not going to be able to check this on a surveillance camera.

I don't trust the electronic computerized voting machines either!

I suspect voters may someday have their own voter registration accounts like a credit card they can use to vote and manage online.
They could enter their votes over time changing them as often as they wish up until the 8:00 pm deadline.

They could also electronically sign initiatives and referendums.

The fact is lost on a lot of people that computers and internet access are not universal even in America...and if you have no electricity, your computer is just a pile of trash, completely unusable and worthless.

At least vote-by-mail, along with polling places, don't discriminate against the haves and have-nots. Polling places offer the option of "vote-by-mail" or alternate arrangements, if made in advance, for people who cannot get to a polling place. Nearly everyone has some kind of a mailing address, even the homeless can get a mailing address for the most part.

Unless the government is going to make computer/internet use as ubiquitous as the blue mail box, there is a better way.

I recall the fracas when Steve Trout was brought here years ago -- and it appears that the concerns about him were well founded. Instead of working to ensure that every ballot cast is counted -- which is his job -- he is on a one man crusade to save the USPS and the Federal Treasury a few thousand bucks by disenfranchising voters. Although I voted for Brown, I am reminded of the old chestnut:
"First rate people hire first rate people; Second rate people hire third rate people."

The goal appears to be getting everyone to vote rather than emphasizing history, civics and what good governance is or can be.

I find it fascinating (and telling) that you see these things as diametrically opposed, and I'll just leave it at that.

The goal appears to be getting everyone to vote ...

And it would appear that it's not succeeding.

I wonder if Jon Corzine can make 1.6 billion votes disappear, too. Glad he survived his car wreck, upset that he's not cooling his heels in Federal prison. No Banksters (of either stripe) are. Why is that?

No really, four years later: Why is that?

Remember, when you support the guy in charge, you also vote for his biggest bundler, Corzine, this stealer of $1.6 billion in client funds, this climax of the Banksters.

At least with mail-in we are spared this kind of outrage, and the vote suppression is pushed to the back room.

Although I voted for Brown

Which makes you part of the problem.

I voted absentee in Clark County Washington by EMAIL! I simply scanned my voter affidavit, secrecy cover sheet (never really understood what this was doing) and my ballot into a single pdf and emailed to the county elections office. Voila! Done!

Whaddaya mean, "come up with a system of vote collection and counting whose accuracy people can be trust"? We already did.
That system is: Paper ballots hand counted. Vote-by-Mail has the first half of that.
There is neither paper ballots nor hand counting of enough citizen votes to set up a majority of Electoral College electors.

The 'system people can trust,' instead was taken away from people by KarlRove-pushed passage of HAVA (Help America Vote Act) for federal dollars buying computer-programmed Touch-the-TV voting machinery in dense-population voting regions and states; (over half the Electoral College count).

More New Jersey urbanity:
Murdoch's NY Post To Gov. Christie: Politicize Hurricane Sandy. Or Else, Media Matters, ERIC BOEHLERT, Nov. 4, 2012
The greatest Election2012 thing might be Christie insisting on Principle to elect by paper ballots hand counted, and coming down to delaying the Obama v. Romney decision in NJ electoral votes ... until NJ hand counting is done accurate and trustworthy.

Throw away the computer program machinery -- France, Spain, Italy, Scotland did, and other countries too, when US'Aid' dumped the devices in Euro elections -- saying, 'No thank you, Uncle Sam, we reject your free money & machinery for our ballot counts.'

Throwing away, monkey-wrenching, or Mother Nature dousing the electric power, whatever removes computer programming from counting ballots is a good thing.

The bum's rush on our ballots -- Hurry Up and Count, Bush's powermongers can't wait for truth, in FLA 2K -- gets hardly massmedia news in the Hurry Up Don't Look for 2012. ... until Supercane Sandy knocked out the Hurri-, turned out the lights and precluded thousands of pre-programmed votes. Internet activity [ e.g. BradBlog.COM ] spreading the news of malware 'voting' has been frustrated by the massmedia blackout of it up to a week and an accidental hurricane before the Election, and can be scorched by short-attn.'Muricans forgetting all about it the day after. Snoozing and bamboozled citizens could at least honor (and marvel) knowing the story of the Master (and martyr) of Malware Mayhem: The suspicious, disturbing death of election rigger Michael Connell, by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman, Columbus OH Free Press, December 20, 2008, et seq.

Michael Connell, the crucial techno-lynch pin in the theft of the 2004 election, and much more, is dead at the age of 45. His unnatural, suspicious death raises serious questions about the corruption of the American electoral process that now may never be answered.

A long-time, outspokenly loyal associate of the Bush family, Connell created the Bush-Cheney website for their 2000 presidential campaign. Connell may have played a role in various computer malfunctions that helped the GOP claim the presidency in 2000. As a chief IT consultant and operative for Karl Rove, Connell was a devout Catholic and the father of four children. In various statements Connell cited his belief that abortion is murder as a primary motivating factor in his work for the Republican Party.

Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell hired Connell in 2004 to create a real-time computer data compilation for counting Ohio's votes. Under Connell's supervision, Ohio's presidential vote count was transmitted to private, partisan computer servers owned by SmartTech ... The SmartTech servers at one point housed Karl Rove's emails. Some of Rove's email files have since mysteriously disappeared despite repeated court-sanctioned attempts to review them.

... on the day before the 2008 election, Connell was deposed by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count, and his continued involvement in IT operations for the GOP, including his access to Rove's e-mail files and the circumstances behind their disappearance.

Various threats have been repeatedly reported involving Connell and other IT experts close to the GOP. On July 24, 2008, Arnebeck emailed Attorney General Michael Mukasey, stating: "We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King-Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio,...."

Connell's death comes at a moment where election protection attorneys and others appeared to be closing in on critical irregularities and illegalities. In his pre-election deposition, Connell was generally evasive, but did disclose key pieces of information ....

Whoever expects such illegal brazen vote-rigging can be taken to Court should consider facing a Court Judge elected by the very same vote-rigging machinery.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Supreme_Court_election,_2011

Which makes you part of the problem.
Mea culpa.

I just voted by email this evening and my kneejerk reaction is to keep it to overseas voting. Waiving your right to a closed ballot should only ever be a lesser of two evils type of deal. The voter fraud potential seems through the roof.