Point, Click, and Vote: The Future of Internet Voting - Hardcover

Alvarez, R. Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815703686 ISBN 13: 9780815703686

Verlag: Brookings Institution Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

<div><p>Whether responding to a CNN.com survey or voting for the NFL All-Pro team, computer users are becoming more and more comfortable with Internet polls. Computer use in the United States continues to grow&#151;more than half of all American households now have a personal computer. The next question, then, becomes obvious. Should Americans be able to use the Internet in the most important polls of all? Some advocates of Internet voting argue that Americans are well suited to casting their ballots online in political elections. They are eager to make use of new technology, and they have relatively broad access to the Internet. Voting would become easier for people stuck at home, at the office, or on the road. Internet voting might encourage greater political participation among young adults, a group that stays away from the polling place in droves. It would hold special appeal for military personnel overseas, whose ability to vote is a growing concern. There are serious concerns, however, regarding computer security and voter fraud, unequal Internet access across socioeconomic lines (the "digital divide"), and the civic consequences of moving elections away from schools and other polling places and into private homes and offices. After all, showing up to vote is the most public civic activity many Americans engage in, and it is often their only overt participation in the democratic process. In Point, Click, and Vote, voting experts Michael Alvarez and Thad Hall make a strong case for greater experimentation with Internet voting. In their words, "There is no way to know whether any argument regarding Internet voting is accurate unless real Internet voting systems are tested, and they should be tested in small-scale, scientific trials so that their successes and failures can be evaluated." In other words, you never know until you try, and it's time to try harder. The authors offer a realistic plan for putting pilot remote Internet voting programs into effect nationwide. Such programs would allow U.S. voters in selected areas to cast their ballots over any Internet connection; they would not even need to leave home. If these pilot programs are successful, the next step is to consider how they might be implemented on a larger scale in future elections. </p></div>

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

<div><p><b>R. Michael Alvarez</b> is professor of political science at the California Institute of Technology and codirector of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project. His books include <i>Hard Choices, Easy Answers: Values, Information, and American Public Opinion</i>, written with John Brehm (Princeton, 2002). He is a nationally recognized expert on voting behavior and elections. <b>Thad E. Hall</b> is assistant professor of political science and a research fellow in the Institute of Public and International Affairs at the University of Utah.</p></div>

R. Michael Alvarez is professor of political science at the California Institute of Technology and codirector of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project. His books include Hard Choices, Easy Answers: Values, Information, and American Public Opinion, written with John Brehm (Princeton, 2002). He is a nationally recognized expert on voting behavior and elections. Thad E. Hall is assistant professor of political science and a research fellow in the Institute of Public and International Affairs at the University of Utah.

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Point, Click, Vote

The Future of Internet VotingBy R. Michael Alvarez Thad E. Hall

Brookings Institution Press

Copyright © 2004Brookings Institution Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8157-0368-6

Chapter One

The Past and Future of Internet Voting

During the recount of votes in Florida in the 2000 presidentialelection, one of the most heated debates was over how military ballotsshould be counted. Under a 1982 federal consent decree between the U.S.Department of Justice and the state of Florida, ballots from overseas votersare to be accepted up to ten days after an election. As the nationwatched and the presidential election hung in the balance, election supervisorsand canvassing boards met to determine which overseas voteswould count and which would not.

The canvassing boards often rejected as many or more ballots fromoverseas voters as they accepted. Orange County-home of the touristmagnet Disneyworld-rejected 117 overseas ballots and accepted onlythirty. But in Escambia County-home of the Pensacola Naval Air Station-the canvassing board rejected 112 ballots and accepted 147. Acrossthe state, election officials estimated that 40 percent of overseas ballotswere rejected in the initial 2000 election count-about as many as wererejected in 1996.

Thousands of individuals-many of them men and women in theUnited States armed forces, military dependents, or civilians serving thenation in nonmilitary capacities-went to great lengths to procure anabsentee ballot and vote in the 2000 election, only to have their ballot notincluded in the final count. In the end, their votes were disregarded for reasonsthat occur in election after election. The absentee ballots of manyvoters were rejected because the ballot lacked a signature or witness. Inmany other cases, the rejection of the ballot was not due to a mistake ofthe voter; while the Pentagon has rules specifying that all mail is to bepostmarked, military mail clerks sometimes fail to do so in order to get themail into bags and onto waiting airplanes or boats headed for the UnitedStates. As Pat Halloran, the election supervisor in Okaloosa County,noted, "Postmarks were never a problem before; we never accepted [ballotswithout postmarks] before, and we didn't accept them this time."

The experience of overseas voters in the 2000 election raises fundamentalquestions about the election process: Can technology facilitatevoter registration and voting? Can registration and voting from remotelocations be done easily and accurately, so that voters do not have toworry about whether they are eligible to vote or whether their ballot willbe counted? For many, the answer seems simple: Internet voting.

The 2000 election was a historic event. Of course, most people view itas being historic for the obvious reason: it was one of the closest presidentialelections in the history of the United States, and for thirty-sevendays, it was unclear who would be elected president. The nation receiveda crash course in election administration, learning about voting procedures,voting equipment, pregnant and dimpled "chads," military andabsentee voting, and the rules for counting and recounting ballots. In theend, the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, by haltingthe Florida recounts, made the story that much more compelling.

However, the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential vote inFlorida was not the only thing that made the election historic. History alsowas being made on election night because hidden among the tens of millionsof ballots being counted across the country were eighty-four ballotsthat were unique in the history of U.S. presidential elections. These ballotswere cast over the Internet by citizens overseas, the first online ballotsever counted in a presidential general election. Moreover, earlier in theyear, online voting had come to the primary process in two states: in astraw poll of Alaska Republicans and in the Arizona Democratic presidentialprimary, when Arizona became first state to use the Internet as amode of voting.

For many, Internet voting seems natural. Ever since the Netscape Navigatorsoftware made the World Wide Web easy to use, the Internet hasbeen touted as a revolutionary force in American society. Indeed, in manyways, it has been revolutionary. In just four years, Internet use in theUnited States skyrocketed: while only 18 percent of households had anInternet connection in 1997, by 2000 almost 42 percent of householdswere online and more than half of all households had a personal computer.For young people, Internet availability is even more ubiquitous-almost95 percent of white school children and approximately 80 percent ofminority students have access to the Internet at school. An entire generationof kids will soon enter adulthood with no memory of a worldwithout instant messaging, web surfing, and e-mail.

The revolutionary nature of the Internet has carried over to the politicalrealm, as Internet savvy politicians have realized how this technologycan be used to further their interests. Consider the following examplesfrom the past several years:

Presidential candidates in the 2000 election used the Internet in everyaspect of their campaigns. Steve Forbes declared his candidacy in an onlineweb cast. Senator John McCain raised $810,000 in campaign contributionsover the Internet in forty-eight hours after winning the NewHampshire primary; 40 percent of the donors were first-time politicalcontributors and 34 percent were under the age of forty. Candidatesposted speeches, policy positions, and attacks and counterattacks on theirwebsites at a frantic pace as they competed to control the flow of informationduring the campaign.

Unconventional political activists also have found the Internet to be arevolutionary tool. As Juliette Beck, an activist in the antiglobalizationmovement, told the New York Times, "The events and the nonviolencetraining and the political theater-the Internet made it possible.... Wehave lots of Lilliputians all acting autonomously and at the same time connected."With the Internet, disparate groups of activists share information,coordinate activities, rally supporters, and develop strategies without evermeeting face to face. Wireless technology is expanding the opportunitiesfor such activities, allowing political dissidents and other actors to communicateon the fly, as events occur.

Because of the difficulty of controlling the flow of information online,the Internet often is touted as the medium that will promote democracyaround the world. As President Bill Clinton said, "In the new century, libertywill spread by cell phone and cable modem.... We know how muchthe Internet has changed America, and we are already an open society.Imagine how much it could change China. Now, there's no question Chinahas been trying to crack down on the Internet-good luck. That's sort oflike trying to nail Jell-O to the wall."

Finally, governments across the United States and around the world aredeveloping "e-government" initiatives designed to connect the public tothe government through the Internet. In addition to offering direct e-mailconnections to government staff, e-government allows the public to accessa variety of services online. For example, the federal government hopes tohave 80 percent of taxpayers file their tax returns electronically by 2007;in fiscal year 2002, 20.7 percent of all tax returns were filed electronically.11 Millions of Americans use the Internet every day to get informationfrom the government, and there is growing demand for more online governmentservices.

Internet...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Brookings Institution Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0815703686
• ISBN 13: 9780815703686
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 204
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar