e-Lection Season

As early as the 2004 election, some citizens will be able to vote over the Internet courtesy of a project called SERVE. (Link via Kuro5hin.)

Comments

[Andy]

Wow! It looks like Julian Sanchez had a very busy night last night.

Andy

[Heather]

Not even American Idol 1 could controll internet voting from hackers, how does the US government expect to?

[Clay]

Heather,

American Idol was phone voting, not internet. Some people have their phone company as their ISP, so I can see how you could get confused.

[Steve L]

E-voting is a really bad idea. With no paper audit trail of actual votes, fraud is certain. Electronic voting will be the final nail in the coffin of American democracy.

[slap maxwell]

I agree, especially if it's the government carrying out the "security" and auditing. We've already seen (in Florida) what that can lead to *with* paper ballots....

[scott h.]

Welcome the next President of the United States: Lord Viper Scorpion.

[dem wonk]

interesting site julian. government opens the door wide open for even more electronic voter fraud. look what happened in florida in 2000:

http://www.gregpalast.com/columns.cfm?subject_id=1&subject_name=Theft%20of%20Presidency

these stories were all over the brit press. bbc's newsnight did an hour long expose on palast's findings. the us press? silent.

[Heather]

Clay,
thats a load off my mind.

[scott h.]

Paper is more secure because it's harder to alter en masse. It would be far easier to alter tens of thousands of votes electronically than by hand.

That said, I'm not worried, considering the professionalism and care our government shows during elections. And our high level of computer security. And who would want to try to alter the results of an election, anyway?

[Eric Deamer]

Yes dem wonk, the Beeb, well known for its journalistic integrity. At least the media here doesn't normally drive sources to suicide.

At this stage, all types of internet voting and polling seem to appeal primarily to irrelevant far leftists (see Julian's post on MoveOn above), so maybe Greens, Kucinichians, Dean Fedayeen etc. will get to make a few more protest votes, but it will have precisely no importance to election results, for awhile anyway.

[Tricknologist]

You know, I am sure I'm biased since I am a web developer, but I find this technophobia to be quite humorous.

[Rex Stetson]

That sounds fantastic- now all the lazy gen-x slackers will have the opportunity to vote in between surfing, blogging, and pretending to work- whereas the old folks ( who don't know how to use computers) have a much larger threshold of effort they have to expend ( such as leaving the house, driving, riding, or walking to the polls, waiting in line, etc.)in order to cast their votes. This might be a way for younger folks to have a competitive advantage against the gimme generation and the baby boomers, despite our smaller numbers.

[T. Hartin]

People who can't be bothered to make the effort to drive to the polls or request a paper ballot most likely can't be bothered to make the effort to become informed about what is going on. There is a reason why the Dems like high turnout elections - the marginal voters tend to break Dem. I wouldn't expect internet voting to unearth new strata of liberty-loving voters who heretofore have just been too damn lazy to drive to the polls.

[Brady]

The common fear of an electonic system is interesting. The most common stated fear is the lack of an audit trail, where paper has one. Why would you think that paper is so secure? Paper can be altered, thrown away, etc., just as electronic data can be altered and deleted.

There will be definite security issues other than that, mainly keeping external hackers out of the system.

[Good Heidi]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
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DATE: 01/26/2004 08:44:14
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