Democratic Party Won't Support (or Condemn) SERVE, While Washington State Hopes to Collect 10,000 Ballots With It

Washington, D.C./Washington State

November 12, 2003

By Marc Strassman

Voting Technology Reporter

Etopia News on Celcast.Biz

Democrat Party Feels that SERVE's Impact is "Unclear"

"The Democratic Party has supported efforts to expand, increase, and improve access to the ballot box for all registered voters," he said. "It's still unclear whether Internet voting does that." And he re-iterated his point, saying, "The jury is still out on this."

More about SERVE

More about how the Department of Defense was working on this in 1998

Washington State SERVE Coordinator Says "It's time for testing, testing, and more testing, including certification by an ITA [Independent Testing Authority] and then by each state using it."

Counties in seven states are planning to participate in this effort. Five of those states voted for President Bush in the 2000 elections, while two of them preferred former Vice President Gore. Specific estimates of state-by-state participation are so far only available from two of the states involved. Amy Naccarato, the State of Utah's Director of Elections, points out that:

"We do have a lot of overseas citizens because of the missionary program of the LDS [Latter Day Saints, or "Mormon"] Church.  Right now we also have one of the highest number of military units on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are anticipating that we will have several hundred overseas and military citizens participate in SERVE."

In Washington State, SERVE coordinator Pam Floyd today said:

"Exact figures for anticipated participation in SERVE for 2004 are unknown, but we hope to reach as [many as] 10,000 voters or more."

Floyd went on to say that "The system is in the final stages of development, which, as you know, means it's time for testing, testing, and more testing, including certification by an ITA [Independent Testing Authority] and then by each state using it." This means that SERVE will have to go through the same testing and certification procedures as any voting system normally used for elections on an in-state-only basis.

Hear Pamela Floyd, Washington State SERVE coordinator, talk about SERVE in Washington State, November 13, 2003

Once the SERVE system has been tested, certified, and adopted in these states, there won't be any TECHNICAL reason why the remote Internet voting system exemplified by SERVE couldn't be used by ALL the voters in the states where it's been certified for use by that state's overseas and military voters.

This, in turn, means that all the more care must be taken to make certain that SERVE is characterized by the high levels of security, transparency, accessibility, convenience, recountability, and voter-verifiability that certain other voting technologies are notorious for allegedly not having.

Speaking of the security of remote Internet voting systems, Terri Carbaugh, California's Assistant Secretary of State for Communications, said today that her boss, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, "was not convinced all security issues [relating to remote Internet voting] have been resolved."

This formulation of one of the major criticisms of remote Internet voting at least seems to imply that it would be possible, someday, to resolve these security issues. This compares favorably to this formulation from former California Governor Pete Wilson, who, in his October 13, 1997 veto of a bill to simply STUDY remote Internet voting, wrote:

"Although current encryption technology is making advances in providing a more secure environment to prevent tampering by third parties, no one can yet guarantee a completely safe, tamper-proof system. Without such a guarantee, a study is premature."

Meanwhile, over at e-thePeople, with 133 page views and 60 votes, the pro-remote Internet voting seems to have settled into a comfortable lead over the con-remote Internet voting position, with a solid 53% to 47% advantage.

Vote yourself on voting remotely over the Internet, like the soldiers, diplomats, and overseas American citizens who'll be using SERVE next year