Digital democracy' initiative under
way
By Vicki Haddock
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
With more than half of eligible Californians saying they are "too busy" to vote, the
state is being asked to let voters cast cyber-ballots, from home or work, with a
simple click of a mouse.
This week, the secretary of state's office authorized proponents to begin collecting
signatures for a "digital democracy" initiative that would permit Californians to
register and vote via the Internet. The initiative, sponsored by Votation.com, a New
York company that sells Internet election technology, needs 419,260 voter
signatures by May 25 to qualify for the November ballot.
Supporters tout "click and pick" balloting as a remedy for anemic voter
participation, particularly among younger voters, who already are the most robust
Web users. It also is likely to yield quicker election results, a plus in
delay-plagued San Francisco.
State election officials, however, view the initiative with skepticism. They question
how to ensure the secrecy of the ballot and fend off electronic tampering if voting
goes online.
Within two weeks, a state task force is due to release a report about the pros and
cons of cyber-elections. Task force chairman Alfie Charles, who works for
Secretary of State Bill Jones, said the panel would endorse Internet voting from
computers located at any county-operated polling place, regardless of the
location of the voter's home precinct. But not from home or office computers.
'Not there yet'
"I think it is the sense of most of us on the task force that Internet voting from your
home or workplace computer is inevitable someday," he said. "We're just not
there yet."
San Mateo County elections chief Warren Slocum disagrees, insisting the
technology already exists to stage secure Internet elections. "It's going to
happen," he said. "It's the next logical step in our journey to a true digital
democracy, and we're ready to take it.
"The speed at which this state has progressed basically has been controlled by
one person (the secretary of state), so this initiative sort of shakes that paradigm
up and could give citizens an actual hand in speeding things up." Slocum also
served on the task force. But he added that if Jones publicly opposed the initiative,
"it's pretty much the death knell."
Nobody knows exactly how online voting from remote locations would work, but
here's a likely scenario:
Before election day, you click to your county's Web site, download a form
requesting to vote online, sign it and send it to the elections office. There, workers
authenticate your signature, record the digital ID of your computer and issue you a
PIN number that will work only from your computer.
On election day, you log onto a Web-based ballot using your PIN, click on your
choices and hit "send." During transmission, your ballot is encrypted ?
transformed via a complex algorithm into an undecipherable code ? to protect its
secrecy.
When it lands in the elections office computer, a central computer records that
you voted and how you voted, but in two separate areas, and then tabulates the
winners and losers.
Time to hit the brakes
The Voting Integrity Project, a nonprofit organization that monitors elections, calls
Internet voting "a large, nonmoving target to potential thieves or hackers."
President Deborah Phillips likened the idea to "a loaded semi with no brakes and
no lights barreling down the information superhighway in heavy fog" ? adding it
was time to hit the brakes and study the implications.
"I'm not even ready to say online home or office voting is inevitable," said Kim
Alexander, also a task force member and president of the nonpartisan California
Voter Foundation, which pushes technological advances like online campaign
finance reporting. "There is a serious trade-off at stake.
"OK, it may be more convenient. But for every degree of extra convenience we lose
a degree of something else, usually privacy. And privacy is something
Californians hold very dear."
She contended, for example, that allowing workplace voting could create
situations where co-workers or employers were looking over the shoulder of
voters as they made their selections on screen.
No mandate
Thus far, Californians appear equally divided on the question of online voting. A
poll conducted earlier this month by the Public Policy Institute of California found
47 percent of adults favored the notion of Internet elections, while 48 percent
opposed. Almost half of Internet-savvy users were either opposed or undecided
about the worth of cyber-ballots.
In fact, of all those surveyed, 46 percent said they preferred to vote at their local
polling place, 30 percent picked the Internet, and 23 percent favored an absentee
ballot.
Critics cite a variety of concerns about Internet balloting. Some say it will give an
electoral edge to the demographic group most likely to use the Net, white males,
at the expense of minorities who lack ready computer access. Others fear the
government will have to create a Big Brother-like repository of "biometric
identifiers" ? retina scan, voice recognition, fingerprint verification ? to
authenticate each electronic vote.
Technical experts worry about viruses and "Trojan Horse" programs that could
usurp and alter ballots before or after they reach a personal computer.
And purists argue that people who can't be bothered to vote now are cavalierly
taking a sacrosanct privilege for granted and deserve not to be counted.
Proponents of cyber-balloting counter that voting is partially computerized:
Computers transmit local votes to state computers, for example. They say many
of the security risks present in Internet voting also exist with mailed absentee
ballots, now cast by a fourth of California's electorate.
And finally, they note that nobody need be forced to vote via the Internet. Rather
than replacing a traditional precinct polling place, it would simply be another
option.
If the initiative fizzles, Slocum sees no need for a change in state law, contending
that the best approach would be for software companies to seek routine
certification from the secretary of state's office. He hopes San Mateo, with its
close proximity to Silicon Valley, becomes the first county to allow online voting in
a binding election. "What better place than here?" he asked.
Article received on Wednesday, December 29 1999 at 11:36 EST |
