The sterile ballot box

We live in an era of information, supposedly. One can access immense tomes of knowledge these days with an internet connection, and with the ubiquity of such connections, such access is available almost anywhere in the country.
Yet, there is one place where we don't seem to have much information available to us at all. That is the ballot box.
Today's ballot box is still a sterile list of names, political affiliation, and office the candidates are running for.
Why can't we have more information about our candidates in the voting booth? Why can't we have a bio of the candidate, any criminal record the candidate may have, and a list of key positions or views the candidate holds? Why are we left in the dark in the ballot box, having to read and research in detail about these candidates before we vote?
Why is it that an employer, screening a potential employee, is allowed a wealth of information, yet voters, selecting a representative or political leader, have little more than a selection of names and political parties in the ballot box? Shouldn't we, as the electorate "employees" of politicians, have access to basic info about them at the time we cast our ballots?
It's a shame that when we have the technology to easily add information at the point of service in situations such as medical care, we can't apply this to voting.
I would wonder if adding such information might lessen the value of our political ads and spinning. What if voters had a clear, objective description of the candidate to base a voting decision on, rather than relying on spin and attack ads in the media?
I would also wonder, if we had access to such information, how many "values" voters would have voted for Bush and Cheney, if their criminal records of various drunk driving arrests were disclosed in the ballot box?