Who wants retinal ID just to vote?

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There's no real difficulty in building a digital ID bank with all of the citizens of a given country. It could be based on fingerprints, or on retinae, or perhaps even saliva. Each person could be implanted with a juke that distinctly and singularly identifies him or her. Reports have it that the U.S. government is actively involved in devising systems such as this - and not for reasons of expanding the possibilities of democracy. The question is, of course, whether the price we would pay in order to be able to vote from home would be worth it. Are we interested in having such wide-ranging surveillance over our lives simply in order to permit us to vote from home? Most of us would prefer more traditional voting, even if it means standing in line, and perhaps even some mistakes in tabulating the votes. What's more, voting turnout is often low because people don't want to take the "trouble" to vote. And perhaps that's not such a bad thing. It means that whoever votes has decided that they want to make the effort. Allowing people to vote in the same way that they make toast in the morning wouldn't necessarily be a step forward for democracy.

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