Some GIs will vote by Internet in 2000

Saturday, 27 November 1999
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/1127N03.html

Scripps-Howard News Service
WASHINGTON - Those who say they're too busy to vote could lose that excuse if an Internet experiment succeeds.
Beginning in January, 350 U.S. troops stationed abroad will take the first steps toward ``cyber-voting'' in the November 2000 election.
In a test program involving five states - Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Utah - GIs will be able to register to vote, request absentee ballots and then pull the lever electronically for the candidates of their choice, including the presidential race.
Registration will begin in January.
The idea is to test whether a system for voting by mouse can be created that would preserve the integrity of the ballot and guarantee confidentiality of the voters' decisions as well.
The outcome of the Pentagon's Federal Voting Assistance Program will be watched by election officials and politicians nationwide, according to director Polli Brunelli.
Already, legislators in California and Washington state are studying the pros and cons of e-voting in the civilian world.
Privacy watchdog groups are raising red flags.
Of concern to all is how to prevent fraud, guarantee privacy, ensure that the voter is eligible to cast a ballot, and that access is open to all, even the sizable American population without computers or even any familiarity with the online world.
``We think it has too much possibility for mischief,'' said Deborah Phillips, president of the Voting Integrity Project, based in Arlington, Va.
The Pentagon has worked out what Brunelli says is a secure method that should accomplish at least the first three objectives.
GIs who volunteer and are selected for the program will receive computer software that gives them access to a pipeline in the military's secure network that is used, among other things, to send encrypted messages across the globe.
The soldiers will receive a ballot encoded in what Brunelli calls an ``electronic security envelope.''
After the ballot is dispatched electronically to the local election official in the home state, that official will separate the ballot from any accompanying identification to make it fully anonymous.
Safe, reliable and quick voting is of particular interest to the military, where overseas troops and their families sometimes have found themselves disenfranchised because their ballots arrive too late to be counted.
Pentagon officials say they hope that the lessons learned in this experiment will lead to innovations in civilian elections.
That is what happened as a result of the military's improvisation during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when troops were allowed to receive and submit ballots by fax. Now, 44 states allow absentee voting that way.
But watchdog Phillips says that the vulnerability of computer systems - including those of the Pentagon - to hackers means that the sanctity of the ballot could be compromised.

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Check the Voting Integrity Project page for the latest on this and other voting controversies.


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