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Shortly after I discovered the Internet, in 1995, it occurred to me that it would be a great way to vote. For a 1088-page chronicle of my efforts to make the idea of Internet voting real, go to:

Etopian Elections: Internet Voting, Smart Initiatives, and the Future of (Electronic) Democracy (HTML version),

Etopian Elections: Internet Voting, Smart Initiatives, and the Future of (Electronic) Democracy (PDF version),

A major part of my campaign for Internet voting consisted of attempts to convince the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that they should amend their "Federal Voting Systems Standards" (FVSS) to include specifications that remote Internet voting systems would need to meet in order to be certified as legitimate means of collecting and tabulating votes in official elections at the state and local level around the country.

Despite my hard work on this front, I could never convince them to do so.

Then, a few weeks ago, I found out that the Department of Defense, in order to facilitate voting on the part of its far-flung active duty personnel, was building a system called the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE). For more on SERVE, go to:

Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE)

SERVE is a classic remote Internet voting system. From what I know of it, it closely resembles the reference models I developed in the mid- to late-90s at the Campaign for Digital Democracy and tried to implement at eBallot.net, a short-lived start-up I co-founded in 1999. It reportedly uses smart cards and digital certificates to assure security and provides "anonymous authentication" to simultaneously provide privacy and non-repudiation.

Excited by the idea that my fantasies of the last century had become a routine part of the 21st century U.S. military, I created a new website called VoteRemote to publicize as widely as I could the fact that the Department of Defense had taken an idea of mine and was running with it. You can visit that site at:

The VoteRemote website

I did an extended interview with Polli Brunelli, Director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), which is running SERVE. That interview is available at the top of the SERVE page referenced above. I also interviewed the SERVE coordinator in Washington State and the Director of Elections of Utah.

Interview with Washington State SERVE Coordinator Pamela Floyd

Interview with Utah Director of Elections Amy Naccarato

Apart from the fact that Ms. Brunelli had indicated that she expected 100,000 voters to participate in the 2004 vote using SERVE, and Ms. Floyd had indicated that "several hundred" Washingtonians would be using it, everything seemed in order.

Then I thought back to that 1990s issue of the Federal Voting Systems Standards and I began to wonder how the SERVE system would be certified for use.

If you're one of the many people who's been caught up lately in the controversies surrounding Diebold's touchscreen voting machines, or one of the millions of voters in California who might not have had a chance to vote at all in the recent recall election because of the ACLU lawsuit arguing that using punch card voting machines would further disenfranchise the already disadvantaged, then you know that how voting technologies are approved for use is a crucial issue in the ongoing evolution of the democratic process.

It was explained to me that in order for soldiers, at home and abroad, diplomats, and foreign-resident U.S. businesspeople and others to vote over the Internet using the SERVE system that that SERVE system would need to be certified as a valid, legal, acceptable, and reliable voting system in each of the seven states that had chosen, for their own individual reasons, to participate in the SERVE program.

The normal procedure for such certification, one required of every punch card, touch screen, or optical scanning voting system, is for the system to have its hardware and software tested by one of the very small number of Independent Testing Authorities (ITAs). If it passes the ITA's testing, it acquires the status of "NASED Qualified." (NASED is the National Association of State Election Directors, and its work is carried on by The Election Center.) After this it has to be "certified" by the Secretary of State or head elections official at the state level, and then individual counties and other jurisdictions in that state may, at their discretion, purchase and use the system. This rather arcane set of arrangements is spelled out in more detail in the "General Overview for Getting a Voting System Qualified" linked to below:

General Overview for Getting a Voting System Qualified

So for SERVE votes to be valid, it would seem, the SERVE remote Internet voting system needs to be tested by an ITA (maybe two) and then "certified" by the Secretary of State or other top election official in each of the seven SERVE states. But here's the problem: as it says in the document linked to immediately above, "The FVSS contains all the requirements for punchcard, lever, optical scan or direct recording equipment systems. Provisions for Internet enabled voting systems will be included in future revisions."

As Brian Hancock, a media specialist at the Federal Election Commission explained to me on November 20, 2003, the current set of FEC-generated Federal Voting Systems Standards (FVSS), approved in "late 2002," makes no provision for remote Internet voting systems. Now, watch closely: These FVSS rules are conveyed by NASED/The Election Center to the ITAs, who use them to test the submitted systems, which, if they pass the FVSS-oriented tests, can be certified by the states.

But how can the ITAs apply the rules for testing remote Internet voting systems to SERVE if there aren't any?

In 2000, when an earlier version of SERVE was run, 84 people used it to vote. But now FVAP says it expects 100,000 (or more) people to use SERVE to vote. That many people could tip the balance in one or more states. So it's important that the system work and be known to work fairly, securely, and accurately. That's what the testing's for. But, again, how can SERVE be tested against standards that don't exist?

Now, of course, the rules stating that only state-certified voting systems can be used in elections could be waived, although by whom is not exactly clear, possibly the states. Or a new FVSS, revised to include the standards that remote Internet voting systems need to meet, could be developed and promulgated by the Federal Election Commission.

But here comes another, even more interesting catch: the responsibility for developing and promulgating FVSSs has, under the provisions of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) been transferred from the FEC to a newly-created entity called the Election Assistance Commission, whose responsibilities will include the development and promulgation of these FVSSs.

Then let the EAC create a new FVSS and SERVE can be tested according to its provisions. The only problem with that scenario is that the EAC won't come into existence until the four commissioners-designate, two Democrats and two Republicans, appointed by President Bush, are confirmed by the United States Senate.

Careful observers of the Capital Hill scene with good memories may recall that just recently the Republican majority in the Senate went way out of their way to harangue their Democratic colleagues for refusing to allow an "up-or-down" vote on the confirmation of four judicial nominees to high office. "The President should get what he wants when it comes to appointments," they thundered, long into the night and into the early morning.

Now the same President has appointed a very bi-partisan group of distinguished public servants to serve as Commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission. The Democratic side in the Senate has given its approval to confirm all four of the commissioners-designate by "unanimous consent."

After repeatedly contacting the offices of Republican Senators Frist, Lott, and McConnell on the subject of Republican support for the unanimous confirmation of the men and women who will constitute the EAC and be in a position to update the FVSS, I received an e-mail on November 20th from Senator McConnell's Press Secretary, saying "The EAC nominations are currently on the Senate executive calendar... I'll let you know when they are called up for a vote." The Senate may (or may not) adjourn on November 25th. We'll just have to wait and see whether the EAC confirmation vote or the adjournment happens first.

So either the new EAC needs come into existence and changes the rules so that the SERVE system, which the FEC's Hancock says "is in the final stages of development," can be tested according to rules that specifically address those elements specific to remote Internet voting systems, or the states need to waive the requirement that all voting systems meet the same rigorous standards, or someone in the system needs to think of a reason why overseas and domestic military voters can vote on SERVE anyway, regardless of the election laws in seven states, or the whole thing has to be cancelled. Did I mention that it's costing $22 million? Canceling it, at this point, may not be an option.

I know I don't want it to be cancelled. I want it to go ahead. I want multiple hundreds of thousands of soldiers, diplomats, and overseas-resident U.S. businesspeople to use it, successfully and satisfyingly. I want the EAC to come into existence and immediately develop and promulgate new rules for testing remote Internet voting systems, so that NASED and the ITAs and all seven SERVE states can qualify and certify SERVE for use in the primary and general elections of 2004.

After all, that's no more than I was asking for from the FEC in the late 1990s.

After that, of course, or even during that time, I hope that all those who see other American voters benefiting from the convenience, security, privacy, ease of use, and accessibility of the SERVE remote Internet voting system will begin to ask themselves and their elected representatives, "If they can vote over the Internet from distant lands, why can't I do so right here at home?"

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