-Caveat Lector-
This information, IF true, only reconfirms what I am hearing on the
internet and elsewhere. It is my understanding that with the conclusion of
the upcoming census -2000, each and every American citizen, regardless of
age, will receive his or her own personal e-mail address, that is their
own personal e-mail address for life, no different than the Social Security
number we are handed now at birth. It will be the item that keeps every one
in contact with the Federal Government, whether for voting, for medicaid
or social security, or should the gov have reason to get in touch with you,
there will be no excuse not to have a way and means to communicate with the
government; as each person is supposed to be required to check in three
times a year, quarterly, regardless of where he / she is in the world.
Big Brother wants his Big Thumb on YOU, and by mandating regular check
points, and penalties for not complying, such as the same as when an
eighteen year old must sign up for the draft. Soon, I look to see computer
screens in the local post office with the charge of the price of a stamp to
use, just to draw business, if nothing else, since e-mail and FAX is
taking much of their profit away. Public libraries and federally funded
universities are already set up to accomodate the need and the traffic that
will be generated by this regulation to check in with Big Brother on a
timely schedule. E-voting is merely an excuse to get this technology
implemented faster...
... the times, they are a changin' ...
eagle 1
----- Original Message -----
From: Alamaine Ratliff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 1999 10:10 AM
Subject: [CTRL] E-Voting
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> From Slate.Com
>
> {{<Begin>}}
>
> Obstacles to E-Voting
> By Jodi Kantor
> Posted Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999, at 4:30 p.m. PT
> E-Mail This Article
> Sign Up for the Politics E-mail Auto-Delivery
> This is the second in a two-part series about Internet voting. To read
Part 1,
> by Jacob Weisberg, click here.
>
> Every year around this time, Americans lament our low voter turnout
rate--44.9
> percent in 1998, putting us 138th in a list of 170 voting nations. This
> explains the growing interest in Internet voting, which promises to do for
> democracy what Amazon.com did for books. Aside from making voting vastly
more
> convenient, say its supporters, click 'n' pick elections could
theoretically
> eliminate fraud, allow instant recounts, and save pots of money.
>
> Buoyed by these hopes, election boards across the country have begun to
take
> tentative steps toward wired elections (many private organizations--most
> notably universities and unions--already conduct internal elections
online).
> State officials in California, Florida, Washington, Iowa, Minnesota, and
New
> Mexico are all examining online voting. In California, the Campaign for
Digital
> Democracy is collecting digital petitions for a ballot initiative that
would
> legalize Internet voting--though virtual signatures aren't legally valid,
at
> least not yet. Software companies eager to showcase their e-voting wares
have
> held mock online elections in Iowa, Washington, and Virginia. And today,
under
> a pilot project run by the Department of Defense's Federal Voting
Assistance
> Program, 350 military personnel posted overseas will vote online. If the
test
> goes well, the FVAP will consider eventually making online voting
available for
> all Americans living abroad.
>
> E-voting isn't nearly as radical as it sounds, for two reasons. First of
all, a
> large and growing proportion of Americans--about 50 percent of Washington
> state's electorate and a quarter of Californians--already mail in their
votes
> via absentee ballot. Oregon, the most aggressive remote-vote state, has
> abolished polling places entirely and now conducts elections exclusively
by
> mail. Local jurisdictions in 15 other states have conducted all-mail
elections
> too. While online elections would use fancier technology, they're based on
the
> same premise--that you can send polling authorities a document that will
serve
> as your proxy.
>
> Second, as Jacob Weisberg pointed out in this space last week, Americans
have
> already been voting by computer for years. Most polling places use one of
three
> computer-based technologies: punch cards, optical scans, or electronic
> recording. (Less than one-fifth of the electorate uses old-fashioned
mechanical
> lever machines, which aren't even being made anymore.) Most experts expect
the
> next generation of voting technology to be Internet-based. And once voters
> start using Internet terminals at polling places, it's a short step to
using
> the same technology from home or work.
>
> But for this to happen, software makers will have to devise voting systems
that
> are demonstrably secure. All of those currently being developed employ
digital
> signature technology--a cryptographic alternative to traditional
signatures
> that identifies a document's origin and verifies that it hasn't been
altered
> while being transmitted (click here for a primer). Banks and insurance
> companies already use digital signatures to transfer large sums of money
> online.
>
> Here's how it might work: A few weeks before the election, you visit your
> county's Web site and print out a form declaring that you'd like to vote
> online. You sign it and send it--via snail mail--to your local election
> authorities. The authorities verify that your signature matches the one on
your
> original registration form at the county courthouse and also record the
digital
> identity of the computer from which you've downloaded the form. You're
then
> sent a PIN that will work only from that computer. On Election Day, you
log
> onto the site using your PIN and check off your choices on a Web-based
ballot.
> Once you're done voting, your ballot is encrypted--transformed into an
> unintelligible mathematical code using an elaborate algorithm--so that it
can't
> be read during transmission. When it arrives, a central computer records
both
> that your ballot was cast and the contents of the ballot, but in two
separate
> places. Keeping this information separate means that election officials
can
> verify that you voted without seeing how you voted. Another copy of the
data is
> burned into a CD as a backup.
>
> On an individual level, the system is about as secure as an absentee
ballot.
> Just as you could sign an absentee ballot but let someone else fill it
out,
> there's little to stop you from allowing someone to vote with your
computer and
> PIN--or to stop someone else from forcing you to turn yours over. But an
> interloper would have to obtain thousands of PINs and computers to
influence
> any election. And one day online voting may be far more secure than
absentee
> voting. Software designers hope eventually to use biometrics--voice and
> fingerprint recognition--to check each voter's identity.
>
> Election officials are far more worried about mass cheating. Since regular
> polling places are scattered in thousands of locations around the country,
> large-scale fraud is almost impossible. But if a federal election was run
from
> a central server, hackers could flood it with activity or jam phone lines,
> preventing people from logging on to vote. Software makers say they'll
address
> that problem by using multiple servers and telephone lines. But the Voting
> Integrity Project--a nonprofit group that monitors election
soundness--calls
> nationwide Internet voting "a large, non-moving, target to potential vote
> thieves or hackers."
>
> Any state that implements 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 (mostly Southern) states
and
> counties from making any change in voting procedures without federal
approval.
> This clause applies to even minor changes that could reduce minority
> participation. Given the "digital divide" between well-wired white and
Asian
> voters on the one hand and less technology-equipped blacks and Latinos on
the
> other, online elections could be seen as an infringement on voting rights.
(For
> more on Internet use among different socio-economic groups, see the
Commerce
> Department's "Americans in the Information Age: Falling Through the Net.")
>
> But the most formidable obstacle to online voting may be entrenched
interests
> threatened by change. In Oregon, vote-by-mail took a decade to go from
proposal
> to implementation because of skepticism by citizens and politicians. "It's
like
> campaign-finance reform--the people who control it are products of the
system,"
> says online voting evangelist Marc Strassman. (Strassman is in charge of
> business development for Votation.com, an Internet voting company, and is
also
> the founder of the Campaign for Digital Democracy, the group behind the
> California ballot initiative.) Phil Kiesling, Oregon's secretary of state
and a
> champion of vote-by-mail, agrees, "The question behind closed doors is,
'Will
> this help our candidate?' There's clearly a strain of people who hope for
low
> turnout."
>
> Join The Fray What did you think of this article?
>
> Jodi Kantor is a Slate associate editor.
>
>
> {{<End>}}
>
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