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WASHINGTON -- Americans are trekking to the polls to cast their votes by touching a screen or punching a card. In an Internet-dominated society, some wonder why voting has yet to move online.

Experts estimate this transition is 10 to 15 years away. Before the digital ballot box brings the precinct to you, some issues must be resolved. Yet many jurisdictions are taking small steps toward wiring the voting booth.

For example, Georgia is the only state that uses touch-screen voting machines in all precincts, but many states are shifting in that direction. These machines have modems, but the software is not designed to transmit votes over the Internet. Actual poll site Internet voting would use machines that transmit votes to a central site for counting.

"Poll site Internet voting is not something to get excited about," says David Jefferson, a voting consultant and computer scientist. "The benefits are going to come with electronic voting anyway."

Jefferson says the Internet could help administrators monitor operations, but its biggest potential is in offering a way to vote from anywhere at anytime, including at home.

Internet voting is the ultimate step in making it easier for Americans to vote, says Mike Alvarez, a political science professor at the California Institute of Technology. It would make polling booths obsolete, eliminate long lines, and reduce glitches, he says.

Trial Runs

In the 2000 presidential election, officials experimented with the Internet. Arizona voters used their own PCs to cast ballots online in the state's Democratic presidential primary. The Reform Party primary voters nationwide used the same system.

In the general election, 87 votes in four states were cast over the Internet from overseas military and government personnel and their families. Of those votes, 50 were in Florida.

Private corporations are already moving in this direction, allowing shareholders to vote using the Internet. Switzerland residents successfully voted online over the summer, and Great Britain wants the country's 40 million residents to vote electronically by 2006.

"The cat's already out of the bag," says Stephen Ansolabehere, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "People want an easier way of voting."

Different Incentives

Absentee voting is hastening Internet voting, Ansolabehere says. In 1972, 5 percent of Americans used absentee ballots; in 2000, about 15 percent voted absentee. Sixty-five percent of the voters in Washington state cast absentee ballots by mail, and all of Oregon's voters cast their ballots by mail.

"Those jurisdictions are being crushed by the weight of that paper," says Jim Adler, chief executive officer of VoteHere, an election technology company.

VoteHere is among the companies that see electronic elections as an opportunity. Since 1996, VoteHere has been developing a wide range of voting technology. Its targets include the Internet, mobile phones, interactive TV, and kiosks at poll sites. The company uses encryption technology to protect ballots and allow voters to verify that their ballots were cast.

Adler says he understands the security concerns and encourages the government to set the standards high, have an open review of the technology, and make sure it can meet the requirements.

"The technology is there," says Adler. "Give us a chance to prove it."

The election reform law President Bush signed in October will establish a committee to study Internet voting and report back to Congress in 20 months.

Although electronic voting technology is already in use, no standard security protocol exists, note the poll watchers. Uniform standards for secure Internet voting should be a high priority for the committee, Ansolabehere says.

Hacking the Vote

Even proponents of digital voting agree that security issues are no small challenge.

Allowing voting from any computer could cause a nightmare, says Jefferson, who has researched online public elections for three years. Hackers could launch attacks, infect computers with viruses, and create identical fake Web sites to mislead voters.

He also raises privacy concerns, such as employers or ISPs monitoring or changing votes on their systems. Large-scale fraud, like vote buying and selling, would be simpler and could obstruct elections, Jefferson says. "These problems could be eliminated, but not any time soon," he adds.

Some critics say these problems could never be fixed.

"The Internet is inherently flawed no matter what is designed," says Rebecca Mercuri, an expert on voting security and a computer scientist at Bryn Mawr College. "It will not work as a stand-alone." She says a "physical interface" is essential. For example, voters could receive ballots electronically, then could print them, vote, sign the ballot, and return them in person or by mail.

Others suggest printing a receipt when a vote is cast electronically. But Jefferson opposes this, saying it heightens the risk of people selling their votes, if they have documentation of their decisions. He also worries about privacy.

"The software on these voting machines is totally proprietary," and vendors control it, Jefferson says. "This in unacceptable."

Politics Already Wired

However, the Internet has clearly carved out a role in elections--if not providing a voting booth. Candidates rely on e-mail and Web sites. Online fundraising doubled in the past two years, says Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline. Even political ads have gone online.

The Internet has transitioned from a "novelty to a necessity," in campaigns, Noble says.

In fact, the Internet provides a useful open medium for political discourse that must be maintained, says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, an Internet advocacy group. But until universal access is available, voting online could lead to disenfranchisement, he warns.

"The Internet is an essential forum for public participation and civic engagement," Chester says. "I'm concerned that Internet voting in the broadband environment will be a very expensive endeavor that will simply re-create the problems we have today."