Internet Voting To Be Tested in 2000 Election By Karen Pierog .c Reuters CHICAGO (Nov. 4) - Next year's U.S. presidential election may provide an opportunity to pioneer yet another use for the Internet -- voting for political candidates. The prospect has sparked interest from several states and the U.S. government and has hatched a number of Internet voting vendors. At least two state political parties are considering using the Internet for their primary elections. Arizona Democrats are planning to offer Internet voting as a supplement to regular balloting for their March 11 party-run presidential primary, said Cortland Coleman, political director for the state party. Voters will be able to vote from their home computers or at Internet sites set up throughout the state, he added. And the Idaho State Democratic Party is exploring the possibility of offering Internet voting as part of its March 4 presidential caucuses, according to Brit Groom, the state party chairman. However, software the party developed with a local company may not be ready in time for the vote, he said. For the November 2000 presidential election, the U.S. Government plans to allow up to 350 members of the military stationed overseas to vote over the Internet, according to Polli Brunelli, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program. The voting will be limited to certain counties in South Carolina, Florida, Texas and Utah that have agreed to participate in an Internet voting pilot program. ''What we're doing is a small controlled experiment to test the ability to do it,'' Brunelli said. SHAREHOLDER VOTES AND MOCK ELECTIONS Internet voting has been used by companies holding shareholder votes. Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's Corp. has allowed shareholder proxy voting over the Internet for a couple of years in addition to mail-in proxies, according to spokeswoman Anna Rozenich. She said the fast-food giant has seen incremental increases in shareholder participation in Internet voting. In the government arena, where election officials are tempted by the promise of faster vote tallies and increased voter participation through the convenience of the Internet, only mock elections with a limited number of voters have been held so far. Last Tuesday, for example, voters in two Iowa counties were allowed to revote on Internet computers for local elections. Secretary of State Chet Culver said about 30 percent of voters revoted in the experiment. ''We tried it, it went very well and now we have to analyze the results to see where we go from here,'' he said, adding that he viewed Internet voting as a way to get young people to vote. In October, VoteHere.net, which also supplied the technology for the Iowa vote, held what it called the largest-known multi-county mock election in Internet history in which more than 4,200 students in several Virginia counties voted from computers at their high schools. ''I think in a public sense, (Internet voting) could begin as early as next year, at least in some trial fashion,'' said Jim Adler, president and chief executive officer of VoteHere.net. He said the company, which would supply the systems for the Arizona Democratic primary, also held four successful trials in its home state of Washington earlier this year. Adler's company is marketing an election system that authenticates a voter, protects the secrecy of a ballot through 1024-bit public-key encryption, tallies the votes and allows for an election audit. SECURITY CONCERNS One big issue that must be addressed is vote security, like the potential for elections to be manipulated by anyone from a mischievous computer hacker to a sinister foreign government, he said. Others are the identity or coercion of voters, the cost of adopting an Internet voting system and the problem of keeping how someone voted a secret. ''There are more issues here than meet the eye,'' regarding Internet voting, said Doug Lewis, executive director of The Election Center, an administrative and educational organization for state and local election officials. ''Until we can be sure it has integrity, that the election is an accurate reflection of the public will, we don't want to jump head long into that notion,'' Lewis said. Louisiana Republicans, who planned to hold a January caucus vote over the Internet, dropped the idea for security reasons, according to Connie Chittom, deputy chairman of the state's Republican Party. Many believe that small steps will be taken on the route to Internet voting, starting most probably with setting up an Internet computer loaded with ballot information at polling or other public places. Alfie Charles, chairman of California's Internet Voting Task Force, which plans to roll out an Internet voting study in December, said once an Internet voting system is certified for the state, the first step would be to make it available at polling places. A second step would allow voters to cast ballots at polling places other than their own, while a final step would make voting available from home or office. The California study also raises a litany of concerns similar to the ones voiced by Lewis, as well as the possibility of viruses invading personal and election computer systems. Lewis said Internet voting could become a reality, as long as potential concerns are identified and addressed. ''One thing we don't want to do is disenfranchise voters,'' Lewis said. ''No one wants their vote to go off into Never-Never land.'' REUTERS Reut12:29 11-04-99
