“We are persuaded that a signature under (state law) does not require a signor to physically handle a piece of paper and sign her name with a pen,” wrote Chief Justice Christine Durham for her colleagues on the state Supreme Court. “An electronic signature is sufficient to satisfy the election code.”

Generally speaking, you don’t see a historical statement in the news. This may be one. I am a proponent of using the internet to do many things that formerly required actual physical presence. These are signing petitions, shareholder meetings and voting. We should not have to be physically present to do organizational things.

At one time, we could only speak face to face, the best we could do to improve the range was to speak loudly. How many times a day do you communicate with words? And how many of those were face to face?

The world has changed. If you can buy thousands of dollars of whatever online with reasonable assurance of security, surely you can vote – surely you can vote to confirm the CEO’s pay package. Let’s have some democracy!

Once upon a time we lived in tiny communities in an agrarian society. We could meet in small groups and make our opinions known. Now we live in vast cities in a society that makes money by moving other people’s money. But we can use modern communication to shrink to that small world where we could make our opinions known. We live there once more in tiny communities. Because it will always be the committed and informed that are but small groups in our society. The wheel has turned. We have opportunity here to improve our lot from identical insects in a hive to more like human beings. It’s a good step. Our humanity is hard to project and hard to maintain. But it is a step and a step in the right direction.

James Pilant

[And it all started in Utah.]