Voting on the Internet: Coming to an election near you?

The days of standing in line, filling out forms and pulling levers behind drawn curtains may be on the way out. Voting in the new millennium may use new tools of the trade: a PC, mouse and modem.

The world's first national electronic voting trial was recently held in New Zealand. Twenty-one thousand volunteers, roughly 1 percent of the voting population, were given a chance to vote via the Internet.

"The critical point is secure identification of the individual," said Andrew Larner, project manager of the Local Government Management Board that is studying electronic voting. "But the technology is already in place. We are likely to use a system similar to automatic banking with a council `account number' held on a card used in conjunction with a PIN number." The goal would be to ultimately hold full online elections. In mock voting trials, participants vote for fictitious candidates. Friendly hackers are invited to test the security of the process.

In the U.S., the state of Florida is working to establish minimum standards for Internet and Intranet voting systems by early 1999. The Florida Division of Elections recently held a public meeting to discuss new voting requirements. Paul Craft, a computer audit analyst for the elections division, believes new standards of provisional certification of voting systems which transmit untabulated ballot images or ballot data will soon be completed.