Internat Voting: Will it Spur or Corrupt Democracy?

People have been voting by mail for many years for officers of corporations and on various issues of organizations to which they belong. In recent years, they have been able to cast these votes by the Internet, often using third party suppliers of voting system services. A logical next step, many say, is allowing citizens to vote for public officials over the Internet. Some Internet Voting Experiments Some trials have been carried out or proposed to take place in parallel with government-related elections: In Alaska in January 2000, 35 people voted via the Internet in the Alaskan Republican Party’s presidential straw poll using a password mailed to them in advance1. Kathleen Dalton, a member of the Alaska Republican Straw Poll Committee said that “Internet voting opens up a completely new domain to an Alaskan population that is handicapped by vast distances, lack of land transportation routes, and slow or interrupted postal service in winter months”.2 The Arizona Democratic Party was planning to offer Internet voting in its March 2000 binding presidential primary. Security in this election appeared also to rely on voters signing a form, mailing it in, and receiving by return mail a password that allows them the vote any time withi