The US election system is broken. Here’s how we can fix it.

America is exceptional in many ways. How we count votes should not be one of them.

The US is exceptional in many ways when it comes to elections. First, we are the only industrialized country that disenfranchises so many of its citizens, denying them the right to vote. Second, of those that are allowed to vote, the US has one of the lowest rates of voter participation of any “first world” country.

The US is also unique in how we vote. Unlike most of the so-called “western democracies,” the US relies almost exclusively on electronic voting systems. In some cases this includes touch screens, in some cases marked paper ballots are scanned, and in some cases mail in ballots are processed by hand. Still, when it comes to tabulating the totals, every State uses automated, proprietary electronic systems to tell us who won.

Europe has scrapped electronic voting; why haven’t we?

When I moved to Ireland in 2005, I arrived right on the heels of a scandal that was embarrassing the Irish government. It seems Ireland had decided to emulate its role model, the USA, and “modernize” its election system with electronic voting machines (EVMs). The Irish taxpayers shelled out 55 million euros (around 60 million dollars) to buy enough machines to outfit every polling station in the country.