U.S. Readies Net Voting System for 2004

— For millions of people, the Internet has become the preferred way to buy and sell goods, retrieve news and communicate with others. So why not also use the Net to elect the leader of the free world?

That's what officials at the Department of Defense hope to help do by preparing to test the global computer network in the general and presidential elections of 2004.

Defense officials have unveiled a new project called the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE, which is expected to simplify the absentee voting process for millions of American servicemen and women, as well as other citizens overseas.

But while the 2000 presidential elections showed traditional paper ballots are problematic, an electronic voting system could raise a whole new set of potential problems.

For instance, how could votes be verified without affecting the anonymity of the voter? And would an Internet-based system allow for greater voter turnout — or provide a tempting virtual target for hackers and criminals?

With SERVE, officials are hoping to find out some of the answers, at the same time as they solve other election-related issues for absentee voters.

"Transit time is a problem for overseas citizens," says Polli Brunelli, director of the the Federal Voter Assistance Program, or FVAP, which by federal mandate oversees the suffrage of Americans overseas. "[Overseas] mail is very irregular. Citizens must register [to vote in absentia], get a blank ballot form and return it on time and there's only so much time to do it [all]."

Members of the military have it even worse.

"For the uniform services, time, distance and mobility are also factors," says Brunelli. "Troops are constantly on the move, ships are at sea, and people are shuffled back and forth between training exercises and going to war."

From E-Pay to E-Vote?

Although the SERVE system is still under development, election officials say it would function pretty much like most common e-commerce Web sites.