at e.thePeople, after a long night of back-and-forth, is currently (12:45 pm PST) in the positive range, with a slight majority of 53% of 38 respondents voting "Yes."

You can see the poll and vote yourself at:

e.thePeople Remote Voting Poll

Brief #2

Even though the Department of Defense's SERVE remote Internet voting system will provide identification and authentication adequate to let counties in seven states accept their official ballots, election officials in two of those states, Utah and Florida, have said that the system would not be acceptable for submitting signatures on initiative petitions, which are legal and used in those states.

In a November 10, 2003, e-mail to Etopia News, Amy Naccarato, Utah's Director of Elections said, "We will not allow SERVE voters to sign initiative petitions on-line with their digital signatures."

Her explanation for not allowing Utah soldiers, missionaries, and diplomats stationed outside the United States to use the powerful and expensive Department of Defense system to affix their legal signatures on official Utah petitions was that "We have special legislation that authorizes us to participate in SERVE and it does not carry over into other functions of the elections process."

Not mentioned was why the Utah legislature had not bothered to add a provision to their enabling legislation that would have allowed distantly-situated citizens of that state to more fully exercise their constitutional rights to participate in making laws directly in their home state, even though they might be overseas serving in the military or diplomatic corps or performing a mission for their church.

This exchange between Etopia News and Paul Craft, Chief, Bureau of Voting Systems Certification at the Florida Department of State, shows much the same situation:

ETOPIA NEWS: Can you tell me if SERVE voters will be able to use their CAC [Common Access Card], digital certificates, and Windows-based computers to sign initiative petitions in Florida from wherever they are?

PAUL CRAFT: At this time I am unaware of any functionalities that would allow the signing of initiative petitions.  Since petitions are outside of the scope of the FVAP program I would be surprised if they attempted to address it.

The Federal Government is spending $22 million of taxpayer money to empower one to two hundred thousand overseas voters from selected counties in seven participating states in the 2004 elections. The SERVE system they'll be using, which relies on smart cards and digital certificates to identify and authenticate voters and on some fancy software to assure their anonymity, that they only vote once, and that no one other then they know how they voted is in fact the embodiment and reduction to practice of ideas for "virtual voting" that were developed at, and publicly advocated by, the Campaign for Digital Democracy (CDD) during the late 1990s. If it delivers on its promises, the SERVE system will provide the "authenticated anonymity" that was the core principle of "virtual voting."

Unable to find a workable technical solution to this issue of "authenticated anonymity," CDD turned its attention to "Smart Initiatives," which would allow the use of digital signatures on initiative, referendum, recall, and in lieu petitions. (Maybe they ought to be called "Smart Petitions" or "Virtual Petitions.") Realizing that digitally-signed petitions didn't have to protect the identity of the signer—in fact, required that that identity be public—as did voting systems, and that allowing people to sign these petitions online would obviate the need to have or raise the million dollars (now more) that it takes to qualify an initiative or recall for the ballot, the Campaign for Digital Democracy began an effort to qualify, for the California ballot, by legacy means, an initiative legalizing Smart Initiatives. But, lacking the requisite million dollars, the effort failed, as did attempts to convince state legislators to support a proposal that would have (and still would) effectively disintermediate them out of their jobs, which is to mediate the will of the voters ("representation") into legislation.

But now, with more than 100,000 military, diplomatic, business, and religious overseas Americans poised to use a secure voting system approved, designed, built, and operated by the same organization to which we already entrust the keys to the nuclear arsenal and the defense of our country against its most dangerous foes, an organization to which, in short, we are already entrusting our lives, surely we can now trust that system with our votes, and with our signatures on the petitions by which we enact the laws by which we govern ourselves. What better tool to use in exercising our freedom and political rights than one created by the team whose job it is to protect that very freedom and those rights.

Surely military commanders no longer need to send messages by foot or horseback to their soldiers in the field. They use the latest telecommunications and computer systems to receive information and issue orders in real-time. What they are defending with these tools is democracy. Surely all of us (including the soldiers) practicing the democracy that they are defending with those tools should have the right to use the same instruments in implementing and practicing the democracy they are defending on our, and their own, behalf.

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