E-Vote: Rocking Or Rocky?
The elections director for Washington State recently tried to log on to a Webcast sponsored by the Brookings Institution. The topic was Internet voting.
But Gary McIntosh couldn't get access because the site was overly busy.
"[The Internet is] where we were with television when we had rabbit ears," says McIntosh.
McIntosh's anecdote makes for a case in point with regard to "e-voting": the future is cloudy.
Last month, California election officials released the results of a year-long study of the feasibility of Internet voting, one of the most comprehensive studies to date. The state task force recommended a go-slow approach. In phase one, California voters would be allowed to vote via the Internet at existing polling places under close supervision. [To read the complete study, go to the Web page of the California Secretary of State.]
In Arizona, however, e-voting is moving much more quickly. On March, 11 the Arizona Democratic Party will wade into the unknown when it holds the world's first legally binding online election. About 850,000 registered Democrats in the state received personalized certificates by mail (similar to a personal identification number) which will enable them to vote online/
Party Chairman Mark Fleischer knows the world will be watching.
"I like to think I'm more of a crusader than a guinea pig," says Fleischer, who hopes to boost poor turnout at the polls, especially among voters under 25. But he concedes there may be "bumps in the road."
In fact, there already have been. Though they have often been more legal than technical:
The first bump came in the form of a lawsuit, filed Jan. 21 by the non-partisan Voter Integrity Project (VIP) and two minority Democratic voters from Arizona. The lawsuit seeks to block the use of Internet voting, arguing that it discriminates against minority voters.
The lawsuit cites the U.S. Department of Commerce's 1988 "digital divide" study that shows White households as more than twice as likely to have Internet access than Black and Hispanic households.
"When you make voting more convenient for one sector ... you've got unequal access," says VIP President Deborah Phillips. Her group also contends that the potential for manipulation can not be underestimated.
Fleischer counters that the "e-vote" will not close off traditional voting opportunties, saying "There is no question there is a digital divide. But this is adding additional opportunities, not taking anything away."
And Election.com president Mel Schrieberg says concerns about manipulation are unfounded.
"The technology is there to do this," says Schrieberg, who adds that his company's system is "far safer than any current election system" due to encrypton technology that protects votes in the manner that online banking transactions are shielded.
Warren Slocum, who oversees what may be the most "wired" county in the country puts the matter of online voting simply:
"It'll happen," says Slocumb, the Chief of Elections for San Mateo County, in California's Silicon Valley.
Sooner or later, Slocumb is most likely going to be correct.