‘E-Voting’ Urged as Way to Lift Turnout
We shop by computer, buy stocks by computer, keep in touch with old friends by computer. Now, at the dawn of a new century, we may soon have the option of voting online.
Officials in one California county are so gung-ho about the idea that they hope to offer voters the option in November of casting a ballot via the Internet.
“This is something that might reengage this nation of nonvoters we’ve become,” said Warren Slocum, who presides over elections in San Mateo County, on the north edge of Silicon Valley. He says that “you’ll probably be able to vote from home in your pajamas by 2010.”
Despite such enthusiasm, online voting has yet to get a warm embrace from state election officials. A report to be released Tuesday by Secretary of State Bill Jones recommends a go-slow approach, concluding that Internet voting remains potentially vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
“E-voting” technology, while advancing rapidly, cannot yet guarantee that an election would remain invulnerable to hackers, viruses or other digital plagues, some experts say.
“The danger is there and the danger is real,” said David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Compac in the Silicon Valley and a member of Jones’ task force. “We must not screw this up. If there is a scandal where people get disenfranchised or don’t trust the vote, it could set back Internet voting a generation.”
Trying to Show It Can Work
Companies that produce the software for online voting are forging ahead, insisting that they already can provide tamper-proof elections. Supporters say e-voting is fraught with no more peril than the current practice of allowing people to mail in absentee ballots.
Demonstration projects have been run in Iowa, Virginia and Ohio. Washington-based Vote-Here.net will conduct an Alaska presidential straw poll using the Internet later this month. Meanwhile, a New York firm, Votation.com, will offer Internet voting for Arizona’s Democratic primary in March.
“The technology is there to make Internet voting as secure as elections are today,” said Jim Adler, VoteHere.net president. “It’s ready now. There are real advantages right now.”
The only real stumbling block, Adler said, is that the Internet is not yet a universal fixture in American households. But just wait a few years. By 2004, 80% of the nation’s households are expected to have Internet access, according to a congressional study.
Boosters see online voting as a potential antidote to the nation’s lackluster voter turnout. Voting by Americans between 18 and 24, in particular, has been in decline. Some experts believe online voting could energize young people.
But state election officials want to take a methodical approach to election day on the Internet. The report being released Tuesday by the Jones task force--a panel of about 20 computer experts, voter advocates and regular citizens--recommends a step-by-step process for phasing in e-voting.
The task force recommends that voters initially be allowed to tap the Internet only from computers at existing polling places, which can be monitored for problems by election officials.
In subsequent elections, computers could be placed in high-traffic spots such as office buildings and banks as a convenience to voters. As the technology proves itself, the final step would be allowing voting from home or work via the Internet.
But state election officials could have e-voting forced on them fast. Two initiatives are being circulated for the November ballot that would permit Californians to register and vote via the Internet.
One is being pushed by Votation.com, the New York e-voting firm. The other, which also would allow gathering signatures on the Net for ballot measures, is sponsored by the San Francisco-based Living Constitution Society, a nonprofit group. Neither initiative has qualified for the ballot.
Jones said he is “leery” of the two proposals. He is unconvinced that Internet voting is bulletproof enough to be deployed broadly right away. Jones also suggested that the current methods proposed to vote on the Internet--typically it would require booting up a computer with a special floppy disk--are too “laborious” for technophobic voters.
Some critics worry that e-voting might give an advantage to the white and well off, the most frequent denizens of the Internet. Others say futuristic electoral security measures--such as electronic fingerprinting or retinal scanning--could prove unpopular in a nation historically opposed to incursions on privacy. Some talk ominously of hackers manipulating an election, even from foreign soil.
Even some of the biggest boosters of the Internet as a tool for political education remain unsettled about e-voting.
“Before I got on the task force, I was much more optimistic about the idea of Internet voting than I am now,” said California Voter Foundation President Kim Alexander.
She particularly worries about implications at the workplace, where firms can monitor an employee’s electronic mail. Given that some companies pressure employees to support particular causes or candidates, Alexander said, the specter of such snooping on election day could create qualms.
Others suggest that the practice of voting would hardly be different than Web surfing, threatening to undermine the value that voters place on the act of casting a ballot.
“The nature of democracy is going to change because of this,” Compac’s Jefferson said. “I would like us to do this thoughtfully, to go slowly.”
In Silicon Valley, some want to speed up the process. San Mateo County has more Internet users per capita than anywhere else in the nation. Slocum, the county’s election chief, said he wants to serve that busy constituency as best he can by “bringing the polling place to them” on the Internet.
As an interim step, he has purchased laptop computers that allow voters to cast ballots at polling places with a touch of the screen. Each vote is stored in the computer, then downloaded. A similar system is being used in Riverside County this year.
Slocum also wants to let voters tap the Net in November. He hopes to get state approvals to put computers in safe, high-traffic spots, perhaps the 20 city halls scattered across San Mateo County. He sees it as the first step toward Internet voting from home or work sometime in the future.
In the end, Slocum said, “the Internet is just another alternative. If you choose to go to the polling place, great. If you vote by mail, do it. If it’s the Internet, terrific.”
