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Vote Is Split on Internet Elections

Is Internet voting a cure-all for election woes, or a hacker's heaven?

By Jodi Kantor, The Industry Standard   

Aside from making voting more convenient, online ballot supporters say click-and-pick elections could help eliminate fraud, allow instant recounts, and save money. Buoyed by these hopes, election boards across the country have started taking tentative steps toward wired elections.

State officials in California, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Washington are examining online voting. In California, the Campaign for Digital Democracy collects petitions for a ballot initiative to legalize online voting--though virtual signatures aren't yet legally valid.

Software companies have held mock online elections in Iowa, Virginia, and Washington. And on Tuesday, under a pilot project by the Department of Defense's Federal Voting Assistance Program, 350 overseas military personnel will vote online. If the test goes well, the FVAP will consider making online voting available for Americans living abroad.

Here's how it might work: A few weeks before the election, a voter visits his county's Web site and prints out a form declaring that he'd like to vote online. He signs and mails it to his local election authorities. The authorities verify that the voter's signature matches the one on his original registration form, and also record the digital identity of the computer onto which he downloaded the form. The voter is then sent a Personal Identification Number that works only from that computer.

On Election Day, the voter logs on to the site using his PIN. After voting, the ballot is encrypted. When it arrives, a central computer records both that the ballot was cast and the contents of the ballot, but in two different places. Separating this information means election officials can verify that a citizen voted, without seeing how he voted. A copy of the data is burned onto a CD as a backup.

On an individual level, the system is about as secure as an absentee ballot--the system doesn't prevent someone from voting with another's computer and PIN. Software designers are looking to use biometrics --voice and fingerprint recognition--to check voter identity.

Election officials are far more worried about mass hacking. The Voting Integrity Project--a nonprofit group that monitors election soundness--calls nationwide Net voting "a large, nonmoving target to potential vote thieves or hackers."

States that implement online voting may also have to contend with legal issues of representation. The Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965 to end discrimination against blacks, prohibits several states and counties from making changes in voting procedures without federal approval. Given the "digital divide" between well-wired white and Asian voters and less technology-equipped blacks and Latinos, online elections could be seen as an infringement on voting rights.

For more in-depth coverage of the Internet Economy, visit The Industry Standard.