I had written to Ron Faucheux, editor and publisher of
Campaigns & Elections Magazine, about covering a story involving
Featured
Letter to the Editor,
Campaigns
& Elections Magazine,
September,
1998
To the Editor,
While many campaign functions are being virtualized via the Web, the core political activity of voting has not yet been so transformed. The technology to do so now exists. The political will to make use of it needs to be mobilized and its benefits realized.
By using the latest, most-advanced methods of encryption and online authentication, the EVS will protect the security and privacy of all voters, while allowing them the new freedom to vote from their homes, their offices, even their favorite fishing holes, if they have an Internet connection there. One configuration of the system would provide each electronic voter with a secret ID code allowing them to check the contents of their counted ballot and to add up all the other simultaneously-public-and-private posted ballots. This way, they'd know their vote was tabulated correctly and they'd know that the totals were honest as well.
The groundswell of support needed to enact electronic voting has not yet materialized, even though several studies have shown strong support for the concept. My first unsuccessful attempt to legislate the EVS into existence was by means of the Virtual Voting Rights Initiative (VVRI) in 1996. Modified with stronger punishment for electronic electoral fraud, the VVRI became AB44 in the California Legislature in December, 1996. Amended to call for a study rather than an implementation of electronic voting, AB44 eventually passed the California Legislature, against fierce opposition from the Republication minority, then was vetoed by Governor Wilson.
Building and running the EVS would make voting more convenient for busy citizens, and thereby increase voter turnout; it would increase the security and lower the cost of elections, and spur efforts to provide Internet access to everyone, so they could all vote. Equipping millions of voters with digital certificates and smart cards could jump-start these industries and e-commerce generally.
Some will want to use the EVS to replace "representationalism" and pursue direct digital democracy through frequent public electronic plebiscites. Or it could be used to continue to elect representatives, only more efficiently. It will also allow these representatives to pose questions for their constituents on a weekly, daily, or hourly basis, then do what they will with the results. Constituents who don't like their votes being ignored can try to vote the incumbent out of office, electronically, next time around.
Those concerned about the lack of democracy in countries that seek economic development without granting their populations corresponding political freedom could use the EVS to set up electoral servers stateside and let these disenfranchised foreign nationals cast an unfettered electronic ballot though the Internet connections their rulers have provided for them in order to build up their economy.
The Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and other parties could hold online primaries according to their own preferences. And all the existing web-based political functionality would be enhanced and synergized because the same means being used to collect and distribute political information could now be used for making the decisions around which the whole system revolves.
Marc Strassman
President, Transmedia Communication
Executive Director, Campaign for Digital Democracy
Rebecca Fairley Raney, a freelance writer who frequently covers digital politics for the New York Times, read my post about the Ben Stein show to Democracy Wire and contacted me for an interview about electronic voting. This was the result.
Article
from the New York Times,
but
on the Horizon
The URL for this article is:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/09/circuits/articles/17vote.html
September 17, 1998
Voting on the Web: Not Around the Corner, but on the Horizon
By REBECCA FAIRLEY RANEY 
arc
Strassman first began thinking about Internet voting in 1995. Strassman, a
50-year-old entrepreneur, political activist and occasional Congressional
candidate, was in the process of starting a business, and he wanted to file a
legal notice online. He soon discovered that an Internet posting didn't satisfy
the legal requirement, but the episode got him thinking about the role of the
Internet in democracy.
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Marc Strassman has campaigned for online voting for years, without much success. |
"So I said, 'Why aren't we voting on the Internet?' " he said. "That seemed logical."
So, two summers ago, Strassman spent his days at a food store in
Despite the lack of enthusiasm for Strassman's efforts that summer, Internet voting is a subject of keen interest to policy makers in state legislatures, election offices and even the Pentagon. Plans are under way to start testing systems by 2000.
The Department of Defense is sponsoring a program whose success or failure
will dictate the near future of Internet voting. The system under design would
allow the six million Americans overseas, both military and civilian, to cast
ballots by using the Internet. Five states --
Election offices in the participating states will be given Government computers to receive the ballot transmissions.
Lessons from the Federal pilot project will help state election officials decide whether they want to offer Internet voting to residents at home. Thomas Wilkey, executive director of the New York State Board of Elections, said that election officials had a responsibility to find ways to make voting as easy as possible but that he was taking a cautious approach to Internet voting.
"You have to get up on the horse and get comfortable in the saddle before we can take a ride," Wilkey said. "I think every state has a long way to go."
In
"My initial reaction was, 'That's a stupid thing to do,' " Craft said. "I ended up becoming a leading proponent of it."
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A program whose success or failure will dictate the near future of Internet voting. |
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Now he talks in detail about the ease of using digital signatures to verify
voters' identities, about protecting voters privacy by making sure no one could
found out how any person voted and about setting up multiple control points to
make audits easy.
Craft argues that the Internet could make elections cheaper.
Electronic voting machines cost $5,000 to $7,000 apiece. With electronic ballots created for Internet use, the cost of each machine needed to retrieve the ballots would be about $600.
While
Along with the promise of lower costs and increased access, Internet voting raises many questions as well, particularly about security. Polli Brunelli, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, said the transmission of votes through the military's pilot program would be protected by an encryption system created at the Department of Defense. Also, the system that is being developed must provide a way for an individual to log in with a unique identity and password, but, to protect the right to a secret ballot, it must make it impossible to match an individual with the vote cast.
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Related Articles |
"At no time during that process would we be able to see how any person voted," Ms. Brunelli said.
In his veto message, Governor Wilson cited concern about security as the reason for vetoing the Internet voting bill.
"The use of such a system will compromise voter confidentiality and generate significant opportunities for fraud," he 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."
The vetoed bill resembles in some respects the Virtual Voting Rights
Initiative that Strassman circulated in
He has also learned some of the hard math of
The results were not encouraging. In the course of several months, only one
person, a
Tracy Westen, head of the Center for Government
Studies, referred the reporter on this story to me. The fallout from this article is documented
in several mailings in Chapter 6.
Article
from the Christian Science Monitor,
In
The URL for this article is:
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/11/13/fp1s2-csm.shtml
FRIDAY,
NOVEMBER 13, 1998
In California, Taking the Initiative - Online
·
Internet site to draft ballot measure hints at a future of democracy by
computer.
Paul Van Slam
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
SAN FRANCISCO
If you think the election season is buttoned up and put away, think again.
Another has already begun in California, which this week delivered one of its signature innovations in the workings of democracy. Combining a hot topic with hot technology, it could be a glimpse of where citizen power is headed in the 21st century.
Supporters of education reform here have posted an Internet site (www.localchoice2000.com) that encourages the public to help draft a ballot initiative for the spring 2000 election. Its overarching aim is to increase local control of schools.
The issue itself is hot enough. Public opinion polls show education is the top worry among Californians, and any new citizen-based policy here could well reverberate nationally.
But the most controversial feature of this measure, and one that could spread instantly regardless of whether the measure is ever approved, is the process itself, something akin to writing legislation with several million co-sponsors.
To critics, it's a logical excess in an already excessive process that has
turned the ballot initiative into a fourth
In any event, the melding of cyberspace and democracy is surely on its way, say a number of analysts.
|
Drafting measures online can |
"It's part of an interesting, important, and inevitable trend. The
Internet is uniquely susceptible to this form of participatory democracy,"
says Tracy Westen, president of the nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies
in Los Angeles.
Pin numbers for voting
Beyond just writing ballot measures interactively over the Internet, a number of analysts expect some states to begin permitting registration and voting from computer terminals over the next several years.
Backers of the education measure being drafted here intend to seek permission from the state to be the first to gather the 400,000 signatures necessary to put it on the ballot electronically. They would use pin numbers like those used at ATMs.
Such a step in itself could revolutionize the ballot-initiative process by making it vastly easier and cheaper to qualify measures.
Digital "signatures" are already legal in California for many business purposes, but they are not yet permitted in the election code. A spokesman says Secretary of State Bill Jones will convene a task force next month that will begin exploring Internet voting and ballot signatures.
The main backer of this education initiative is Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper. He was appointed to the state board of education this year.
While "choice" has become almost synonymous with vouchers, Mr. Draper says he's not certain what the final language of this initiative will include. But he says his inclination is to leave public dollars in public schools.
The only guiding principle for the initiative is to achieve greater local control and decisionmaking for schools. The online ballot site asks for comments and suggestions from anyone interested in helping "take back our schools."
California is among 23 mostly Western and Midwestern states that permit ballot initiatives. Activist states like California and Oregon have enacted controversial policies on everything from physician-assisted suicide to affirmative action, stirring national debate on issues that did not survive the conventional legislative process.
"It has become excessive," says Norma Brecher of the California League of Women Voters. The League intends to recommend a comprehensive package of reforms early next year. They will either encourage legislation or take the reforms directly to the ballot with an initiative of their own.
Tweaking a popular process
Reformists advocate a number of changes, but some of the most prominent include stricter vetting of initiative language to avoid flagrant legal conflicts, clearer disclosure of initiative backers, and a process that would increase the odds of a legislative resolution to issues before they go on the ballot.
Attorney Robin Johansen was involved this year in drawing up a reform initiative on behalf of San Diego Padres owner John Moores, but the measure never made it to the ballot. Though they may try again, Ms. Johansen concedes major reform is difficult "because the initiative process is so popular."
Still,
Some think cyberspace can help improve the initiative process. Drafting
measures online, like the current effort here, can
In all, putting the electoral process in cyberspace "saves money, is
more convenient and once it's in place, can be even more secure than what we
have now," says Marc Strassman of the Campaign for Digital Democracy in
southern
Still, critics of the initiative process like author Peter Schrag believe involving more cooks in the stew is not necessarily a progressive step. Speaking of the LOCALCHOICE 2000 initiative, he says, "This is not my idea of political leadership."
Before bookmarking this page in your
The
URL for this page is:
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/11/13/fp1s2-csm.shtml
Amidst all this activity and speculation, one would
like to know just how American voters feel about voting on the Internet. New studies are coming out regularly now, but
this early examination of the issue by Kellyanne Fitzpatrick of The Polling
Company and Betsy Cragon at Proxicom was one of the first and one of the most
thorough.
Report
from The Polling Company,
MAJORITY OF AMERICANS FAVOR VOTING BY INTERNET
Most say Internet will be better than TV for news and information by 2000
Contact:
Betsy Cragon Public Relations Manager betsy@proxicom.com 703.918.0270 or
Kellyanne Fitzpatrick - The Polling Company 202-667-6557
68% Generation Xers (18-29)
65% Daily Internet users
56% Blacks
56% Independents
55% Never watch network news programs
53% Pacific Region
53% Liberals
52% Conservatives
52% Urban dwellers
52% Labor union households
50% of
those who voted on Election Day (
On the flip side, 42% of those polled voiced opposition to voting by Internet. Opposition was particularly salient among senior citizens (49% opposed), whose current access to the Internet is somewhat limited.
"In the rush to judgment that low voter turnout stems from apathy or anarchy within the electorate, two other factors may have been overlooked: mobility and convenience," observed Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, CNN Political Analyst and president of the polling company, a Washington-DC based research firm which conducted the survey for Proxicom of McLean, Virginia.
"Modern technology allows someone to e-mail a friend in
Greater
flexibility and electronic ballot access might lead to increases in the number
of people who participate in the electoral process. Evidence of this trend is
shown in the high number of "absentee" ballots cast in states with
vote-by-mail programs, such as
"The time-and-place rules of voting have been especially restrictive on young people," says Miss Fitzpatrick, a noted expert on the "Gen X" vote. "Many college students attend school far from home, the place where they registered to vote. Their options are limited to traveling home mid-semester at their own expense or requesting an absentee ballot weeks in advance to vote for politicians they don't relate to in the first place. Voting in the privacy of their dorm rooms through a medium they understand may go a long way toward re-enfranchising them into the process."
In separate survey questions, it was revealed that more people believe that by the year 2000 the Internet will be a better source of information about products and services than television (56%-30%). In fact, a majority (53%) of Internet non-users agree. Key demographic groups who believe that the Internet will provide superior knowledge and advice as we approach the next century include:
74% Male Daily Users
71% Weekly Internet users
70% Daily Internet users
67% Watch network news once per week
67% Baby Boomers (30-49)
67% Black men
66% Middle income ($40-$60K)
66% Married, 2+ kids home
65% Working women
64% Small Business Owners
62% Generation Xers (18-29)
"The Internet is the ultimate in channel-surfing, placing the consumer in control of what appears on the screen next," remarked Fernandez, whose clients include MCI and American Express, and whose firm won the first Clio ever awarded for home page design. "Television advertising provides a one-way megaphone with a one-size-fits-all message; in contrast, the World Wide Web and e-mail is interactive, allowing you to access the specific information you need, with continuous updates."
The
survey, which was administered by telephone
This release was found in the AIM InfoCenter. Check in often for more news!
(c)
1997 Assn. for Interactive Media
www.interactivehq.org
202-408-0008
E-mail
from the Florida Secretary of State's Office,
electronic
voting in
Subject:
Electronic Voting System
Date:
From:
"Paul Craft"<pcraft@mail.dos.state.fl.us>
To:
<transmedia@pacificnet.net>
CC:
<ebaxter@mail.dos.state.fl.us>
Dear Mr. Strassman,
I manage the Voting System Section in the Florida Division of
Elections. Accordingly your e-mail to the department about the
"Electronic Voting System" was forwarded to me for response.
eighties. In 1987 we passed ground
standards for electronic voting system design and function. We
presently lead the nation in electronic voting system testing and
evaluation.
We began working on standards for internet voting systems back in
September of 1997. We planned to run a pilot program of an internet
voting system during the fall 1998 election cycle but abandoned this
effort when publicity surrounding absentee balloting in a City of
the project this year.
We have been approached by numerous vendors during the past year who
want to tryout various approaches to internet voting security and
procedures.
At present, we plan to publish standards for provisional certification
of voting systems which transmit untabulated ballots across the
internet later this year. These will be available on our website upon
publication.
In January of 1999, we plan to publish a "Request for Information"
inviting interested parties to apply for provisional certification of
their internet voting systems. Voting Systems so certified would then
be linked up with local jurisdictions who wished to volunteer to use
the systems on a trial basis for a real election.
If you are still interested in exploring this in January please
contact me early in the month so that we can get you on the list of
vendors who will receive a direct mailing of the RFI.
I've attached a copy of the document "Florida Voting Systems
Standards" All voting systems provisionally certified must comply with
these standards in addition to the new standards for the internet
communication subcomponents of the system.
Sincerely,
Paul W. Craft
Computer Audit Analyst
Florida Department of State
Division of Elections
Voting System Section
Phone (904) 921-4110
Fax (904) 488-6174
E-mail pcraft@mail.dos.state.fl.us
Website http://election.dos.state.fl.us
Chapter 5
New
Zealand
Late in October, 1998, I got an e-mail from Bernard
Steeds, a reporter with the
Article
from the
Evening Post, November, 1998
By Bernie Steeds of NZPA
be asked to act as guinea pigs in a mock election in which voting
will be done over the phone and internet, trialing a system which
could one day be used for general elections.
At the same time, hackers will be asked to try to hack into the
system and distort the ``election'' results.
The system, called Integrated Electronic Election System (IEES)
has been developed by Californian company Transmedia Communications
Ltd. It is working in
former NZ First adviser.
The system has already been used for elections by private
organisations in the
first step towards offering the system to governments -- including New
Transmedia president Marc Strassman told NZPA by e-mail from
level of technological development, ``technically-literate''
population, and tradition of democracy.
``Also, it's not too big and not too small to run a useful trial
at reasonable cost.''
He said the company was trying to recruit 20,850 voters to take
part.
They would be sent confidential pin numbers, and would use these
to register votes either by telephone (via an 0800 number) or
internet, in a mock election, possibly as soon as Fe
The election is likely to use real political parties, but fake
candidate names, while the referendum is likely to ask a question
about making New
The company has already asked political parties to check out the
system and plans this month to start raising the $50,000 it needs to
fund the trial.
Mr Strassman said if the trial went well, ``the next step would
be to make the political case for adopting this electronic voting
system for use in
Electronic voting could lead to lower costs and higher
participation in elections, and would also make it easier for New
Zealanders to vote from overseas, he said.
Chief electoral officer Phil Whelan told NZPA he had not been
contacted by Transmedia or Mr Widerstrom but would be interested in
hearing how the trial went.
His office had been approached with several phone voting and
electronic voting systems, and he believed it was possible some
could be trialled in public elections as early as 2002.
``
em
something that's going to make it more efficient for them then that's
something we should be considering.''
However, he said, any new system would have to match existing
standards of secrecy and integrity.
Questions would also have to be answered about whether the phone
system could handle two million votes being cast on a single day,
and whether people could get access to touchtone phones or the
internet.
Mr Whelan said public electronic voting booths in places like
lotto or TAB outlets could -- in theory, at least -- be a
possibility.
The IEEC system is one of two significant developments in
internet-based election systems expected to be trialled in New
The other is an internet-based system for holding political
conferences and debates, which was used in this year's German
elections but has not yet been used in English.
Earlier this year, Rex Widerstrom
("PolemicHOST") had invited me to co-host a chatroom session focusing
on electronic democracy. I signed in as
"VirtPol" (virtual politics) and did my best to be informative and
amusing.
Polemic
Chatroom Discussion of Electronic Democracy,
PolemicHOST:
Hello robert
racrutch:
Rex is that you ?
-----
...........................VirtPol joined............. :)
PolemicHOST:
It is indeed. I just got rid of your "ghost"
PolemicHOST:
Hi Marc
VirtPol:
Hi rex
VirtPol:
let's welcome our guest, racrutch
VirtPol:
hi, racrutch!
racrutch:
I am glad our schedules finally met.
VirtPol:
So am I.
PolemicHOST:
Marc, that's Robert Crutchfield, a fellow Polemic Associate
VirtPol:
Hi Robert!
VirtPol:
where are you from?
racrutch:
PolemicHOST:
Over here in NZ the government has just collapsed, so I have one ear on the
radio and one eye on the screen.
VirtPol:
How hot is it there?
VirtPol:
That's interesting. Does that mean e-lections coming up soon?
racrutch:
near a hundred
VirtPol:
So it would be much easier to stay home in air-conditioned comfort if you had to
vote now, wouldn't it?
PolemicHOST:
Maybe, but a minority government is more likely. We had a coalition and one
party just walked out. The other may try to govern alone.
VirtPol:
Were there any issues, or just personality conflicts?
racrutch:
no question, you think as alternate presiding judge for this precinct I could
arrange something wouldn't you?
VirtPol:
can you?
VirtPol:
or do
you need permission from
racrutch:
No, the election code doesn't allow it, but i could vote from the space shuttle.
PolemicHOST:
just who does have the power to say "yes" to e-voting. Who should we be
lobbying?
VirtPol:
well, one would think it is the state legislatures and governors, since elections are
strictly a state responsibility under the US Federal system. Perhaps it's different
in NZ and other national parliamentary systems
racrutch:
Here in texas it would be up to the legislature. that's how astronauts got the vote.
VirtPol:
could we all claim astronaut status?
VirtPol:
VirtPol:
You could all say you have the right stuff.
racrutch:
No you actually have to be in space at the time.
VirtPol:
many in
PolemicHOST:
LOL
VirtPol:
and we're all in CyberSpace!
VirtPol:
but seriously, you have to find a legislator who knows something about
technology and convince them to sponsor a bill to legalize e-voting, perhaps as
part of a bill to set up digital signature rules.
racrutch:
In
VirtPol:
or you can approach the secretary of state and ask him or her to put together a
task force to study digital voting.
VirtPol:
that is
happening now here in
PolemicHOST:
In NZ too voting rules are set by the existing pollies. Which of course is why it's
so easy to introduce innovative techniques to give more access to democracy
VirtPol:
the secretary of state or whatever official is in charge of voting
VirtPol:
you have no initiative process in NZ?
PolemicHOST:
We have a referendum system, introduced after much lobbying. You need about
200,000 signatures to start one and the results aren't even binding on the govt.
VirtPol:
you can also use the system my company should have ready soon and let
political parties, labor unions, class re-unions or any voting group use it and see
how great it is and then when everyone wants to use it, take it public
racrutch:
oddly enough at the county level here its split between the county clerk, and the
tax assessor
VirtPol:
that's too bad
VirtPol:
what's the split?
PolemicHOST:
There has been only one citizens initiated referendum successfully gotten through
the signature barrier since the legislation in 1993, and the results of that were
completely ignored.
racrutch:
County clerk runs the election; the tax assessor is in charge of the registration
records.
VirtPol:
well, the masses ought to be crying out for e-democracy then
VirtPol:
well, that shouldn't be a problem, as long as they use the same operating system
and software
racrutch:
not always, that's currently a campaign issue.
PolemicHOST:
Since 1984 successive "left" and "right" govts have followed a New Right cut
welfare /sell assets / disenfranchise the people policy, and people over here are
too shell-shocked after years of protest marches etc.
VirtPol:
you
could adopt the
VirtPol:
no voting at all
PolemicHOST:
But I agree that the key is to let them play with it, see how easy it is, then they'll
wake up to how much control they could have literally at their fingertips.
racrutch:
we are going through a period of reduces voting here which is a shame.
PolemicHOST:
Shoot the opposition? Imprison their supporters? Hey, I couldn't support that.
At least until after I'm in power ;-)
VirtPol:
maybe the choice will be e-democracy or no democracy. and you can vote
electronically to decide.
PolemicHOST:
That may be so. With so many competing demands for time, and it being so
hard to
change things by traditional routes. That's why I have em
personally.
VirtPol:
great!
VirtPol:
so what should we do next, since we all seem agreed?
PolemicHOST:
I wonder where Steven Clift's 400, plus the Campaign Techniques 200-odd,
plus the PSoTD list's many hundreds, are? Sitting at home in front of the box
waiting to find out what the sticky stuff is on Monica's dress I guess. So my
suggestion as to what to do next would be to shake them by the lapels.
racrutch:
As I said on the campaign techniques list i notice more media outlets are
accepting email press releases.
-----
...........................virtpol joined............. :)
virtpol:
there was a small coup here. I'm back now.
racrutch:
All we can do is keep trying different ideas until one works.
virtpol:
that sounds pragmatic
PolemicHOST:
He heh. Keep control of the troops Marc. Watch as I magically zap your alter
ego :-)
-----
............................VirtPol left ............. :(
virtpol:
how does it feel to have such power, rex?
PolemicHOST:
Wishing I could demonstrate it to the huddled masses.
virtpol:
e-voting or your power?
racrutch:
Now that I have got these chats in my routine i am going to try and help promote
them more
PolemicHOST:
Both. As long as they kept me on as benevolent dictator they could vote for
whatever else they wanted. ;-)
virtpol:
great. eventually we'll have a working majority of world voters
virtpol:
so,
where do we have the best change to succeed:
virtpol:
Is Governor Bush into e-democracy?
PolemicHOST:
I think you'd vanished into cyberspace for a sec when I asked where all Steven
Clift's list (some 400) plus the Campaign Techniques list (200 odd) plus the
PSOTD list (a few hundred I guess) are. If this is the level of interest amongst
*them* what hope is there for getting the public to get interested?
racrutch:
He submitted his campaign finance reports in electronic form so it's a start.
virtpol:
do you have a connection with his office or presidential campaign? maybe he
needs a new issue.
virtpol:
it would be good to keep e-voting a bi-partisan issue, with support from both
parties
racrutch:
I know some people who know some people.
virtpol:
that's a start. I can provide you with endless piles of essays, news stories, and
model laws on digital voting which I'd be glad to forward to you to forward to
them to forward etc. and consult with anyone along the way about this.
virtpol:
get
them in a rivalry with
virtpol:
and
racrutch:
contact me latter at racrutch@c-com.net and we'll talk
virtpol:
ok
-----
...........................Madeline joined............. :)
virtpol:
hi madeline
PolemicHOST:
NZ led
the way granting the vote to women,
like to think we could do something here, but I think we'll have to wait till closer
to the election because people are sick to death of politics generally.
Madeline:
hi!
racrutch:
Greetings Madeline
PolemicHOST:
Hello Madeleine. We're discussing "e-democracy" - the use of the Internet and
other technologies to empower citizens to find out more about government, to
communicate with it, and maybe even to vote. I'm Rex Widerstrom, Director of
Polemic Political Consultants ( http://www.polemic.net ) and my co-host this
evening is Marc Strassman, the man behind the Virtual Political Action
Committee ( http://www.vpac.org ), Director of Transmedia Communications,
and an expert in the field.
virtpol:
I think getting one or more of the parties to use Electronic voting might be the
best approach in NZ
virtpol:
great intro rex, thanks!
virtpol:
and so fast, too
Madeline:
Nice to meet you
PolemicHOST:
Heh heh.. Got that bit to work okay, anyhow.
virtpol:
nice to meet you. where are you from?
-----
...........................Zoon joined............. :)
Madeline:
Do you think people are about voting online?
virtpol:
I know I am.
racrutch:
Hello Zoon
virtpol:
hi zoon
PolemicHOST:
Hello Zoon, welcome.
Madeline:
hi zoon
virtpol:
almost a quorum now
PolemicHOST:
Madeline: Why wouldn't they? What do you think are the barriers? It's easy for
us zealots to overlook the cons while promoting the pros.
racrutch:
If I were at the recreation board where I sit we would have one now.
virtpol:
the pros have enough people promoting them, agents, managers, etc.
Madeline:
I don't think people in general care about politics
virtpol:
I think you're completely right.
racrutch:
Only when their ox is the one that gets gored.
virtpol:
or Gore is running for head ox
PolemicHOST:
But isn't that because they don't get listened to by the pollies? And isn't this a
way to make sure they are?
virtpol:
It would certainly help.
racrutch:
When he is not running for cover.
virtpol:
who's running for Cover? who's running against him?
Zoon:
Hello room
PolemicHOST:
Now now, bi partisanship, please. (Save the zingers for when we discuss the
forthcoming residential race, which we will do soon)
virtpol:
the residential race? who gets which house or apartment?
-----
............................Madeline left ............. :(
virtpol:
lost another one.
Zoon:
Have we exhausted the e-democracy topic?
PolemicHOST:
Oops, should have minded my p's as well as my q's.
virtpol:
have we?
PolemicHOST:
No, sorry Zoon, we were deviating there. My fault.
virtpol:
let's not deviate, rex
virtpol:
we have enough of that here already
Zoon:
I live in Minnesota where e-democracy started.
PolemicHOST:
What's your feeling Zoon? Is the wider electorate ready for the idea?
virtpol:
you mean where steven clift lives?
Zoon:
Yes, where Steve lives.
virtpol:
you're not Steve are you?
racrutch:
Most of the e politics i see is basically experimentation. people seem to be trying
to figure what to make of it.
virtpol:
not that there's anything wrong with that?
PolemicHOST:
So does Garrison Keillor, and he's not him either ;-)
Zoon:
No, I am not. I know him though and even let him know about this chat.
virtpol:
he sent out a notice about it. I got a copy.
virtpol:
his essay Democracy is Online is worth reading
racrutch:
There was one in today's mining company newsletter also.
virtpol:
great
virtpol:
how extensive IS e-dem in Minnesota? what's it used for?
Zoon:
The site is developing quite nicely. They have been including a raft of information
on this years political candidates and are even talking about including video and
audio.
-----
...........................bjornski joined............. :)
virtpol:
hi bjornski
racrutch:
welcome bjornski
bjornski:
hiya
virtpol:
do you think e-democracy can be complete without e-voting?
Zoon:
I am slow to endorse an electronic voting format.
PolemicHOST:
Number of Internet Users According to Various Sources: Intelliquest 70 M,
MRI 40 M, Nielson Media 58 M, Morgan Stanley 80 M, eStats 47 M. That is
a huge lobby if they all decided they wanted to e-vote.
virtpol:
please tell me why
bjornski:
I'd be slow to endorse it right now also. Too many ways to cheat
PolemicHOST:
Ah hah. That I feel is one of the main concerns, and especially one that the
pollies will throw up. Marc?
bjornski:
the security is too lax right now, and any efforts to get it solidified will result in
national ID numbers, which is an idea that's even slower to catch on
Zoon:
I do not support a direct democracy. I believe that the founding fathers had it
right to create a representative democracy.
virtpol:
well, they weren't the greatest democrats, many of them
bjornski:
but our elected reps are not doing OUR job, they're doing their "investors" jobs
virtpol:
what exactly is wrong with national ID numbers?
racrutch:
I am hoping as we gain experience with the space shuttle that will change.
bjornski:
I don't want all of my personal info stuck into one number, that can be accessed
with the swipe of a card by almost anyone with (and even some without) a
reader.
virtpol:
maybe we should launch all registered voters into space and THEN let everyone
vote
Zoon:
There is more than one school of thought on the role of an elected official.
PolemicHOST:
Zoon: e-democracy does not mean that the people replace Congress. But that
important decisions on national policy direction could be decided more than
once every three or four years, and more subtly than by voting for an entire
platform.
virtpol:
I'd like to see Mini-Voting Booths in the offices of every representative.
Zoon:
I feel that the ability to get elected and the ability to serve are two different
things.
virtpol:
They could pose questions and use or disregard the results
bjornski:
forget voting for the platform. I believe in referendums to be voted on by the
voters.
racrutch:
I would like to see more voters in the office of every representative.
virtpol:
bjorn, if you like referenda, can't we vote on them electronically, so we can do it
frequently?
PolemicHOST:
While
supporting e-democracy I also don't want a single ID number. Big
(and sister) know too much about me now. Marc, is there a way to do it without
that? Say, a PIN number only for voting and not known to anyone but you, like
an ATM card?
bjornski:
like, why even hold presidential popular elections right now? It's basically all
decided by the electoral college (tho I'd like to see them radically sway from the
pop vote. They'd be beheaded)
Zoon:
Referendums only foster a system that focuses on push button voting and
appeals to emotional issues.
virtpol:
as though emotion plays no part in elections now. ;--)
bjornski:
and the
current representative government
apathy for the people being voted in. Nobody cares anymore. It's all corporate
politics
virtpol:
there's no reason why voting id numbers need to be linked to anything but your
voting registration, rex.
Zoon:
I believe that the Electoral college should be changed from winner take all to
popular vote total in each Congressional District.
virtpol:
jurisdictions are splitting up. 1.5 million people in the San Fernando Valley
MAY exit los angeles.
PolemicHOST:
bjornski: Would that satisfy you? A voting PIN that only you know?
racrutch:
Here we have separate voter id numbers now so a single number is not
necessary.
virtpol:
they could use e-voting there soon.
bjornski:
I could go for a voting card like that, as long as people had to show up in person
to sign for them.
virtpol:
you want to stand behind the counter and give them out?
Zoon:
They have thumb print signatures at my bank that could be employed.
bjornski:
if that's what it took to avoid falsified info, yes.
virtpol:
you can add fingerprint scanners to keyboards and use that
PolemicHOST:
Well there we are. One more trip to the polls, at which you'd show some ID, get
a card issued, go into the booth, vote AND choose your PIN, and bingo!
You're an electronic voter from then on.
racrutch:
We
already have
accomplished.
bjornski:
thumbprint starts tapping into a database that can be tied into law enforcement.
nada
virtpol:
all I'm saying is that we should look at these technologies from the private sector
for use in the political sector
virtpol:
what if the people controlled law enforcement through their
electronically-elected and advised representatives?
Zoon:
I think that the act of voting should be a social exercise. It is too easy to isolate
yourself from your fellow human being and then no longer respect any opinions
other that your own.
PolemicHOST:
If you were issued with a PIN which was "locked out" of the system to avoid
duplicate votes, you'd soon know if anyone else had stolen your PIN and voted
in your stead, surely?
bjornski:
but the ratio of households with computers is greatly outnumbered by those that
don't. If we started closing down voting booths in favor of e-vote (even in only a
few places), you'd throw off the votes to those that have and have not
virtpol:
but people are ALREADY isolated and it is already illegal (at least in California)
to campaign at the polls. So what are we loosing?
racrutch:
The military calls it COTS (commercial of the shelf ) hardware
virtpol:
And no one is talking about shutting down the "legacy" polls.
Zoon:
I have participated in voting by mail and felt that that skewed the outcome.
PolemicHOST:
Agreed, access to technology is an issue. So we run the two systems alongside
each other, is that the way it works, Marc?
Zoon:
Not that I didn't enjoy helping skew it though.
virtpol:
those without computers can go to the walk-in polls
virtpol:
Yes. and we can put lap-tops or palm-tops with big screens and internet
connections in the polling stations for those who want a social experience while
voting or who don't own a computer
bjornski:
hmm. I'd have to see a system like that in place, but I think I could be convinced
to use it. I'm already shopping online
virtpol:
this is just shopping for pollies.
bjornski:
too bad I can't afford to swing the votes, like many corps
virtpol:
and if we had them set up Mini-Voting Booths in their offices and present us
with the Daily Referendum which they can use or not
virtpol:
if we don't like it that they don't use it, we can vote them out next time, since the
results will be posted everyday
PolemicHOST:
Postal voting is a whole can of worms. Amongst the allegations that I've heard
leveled: voting papers stolen from letterboxes of neighbourhoods where few
were likely to be bothered to vote anyway, and so few complained; men
standing over women as they filled out their ballot, or simply filling it in for them,
and vice versa. Electronic is much safer.
-----
...........................Mugwump joined............. :)
bjornski:
I'd groove on a daily referendum. Even just a daily referendum survey. Check
my e-mail in the mornings, cast my votes, and go on with my day knowing that
my opinions would be heard
virtpol:
also, electronic voting from home will make it much easier for visually- and
mobility-challenged voters to vote privately
PolemicHOST:
Hello Mugwump. We're discussing "e-democracy" - the use of the Internet and
other technologies to empower citizens to find out more about government, to
communicate with it, and maybe even to vote. I'm Rex Widerstrom, Director of
Polemic Political Consultants ( http://www.polemic.net ) and my co-host this
evening is Marc Strassman, the man behind the Virtual Political Action
Committee ( http://www.vpac.org ), Director of Transmedia Communications,
and an expert in the technology we'd be using
Zoon:
I feel this way that elections, while being anonymous are not completely good
decisionmaking processes. When you select a candidate your decision affects
me a person should stand up and be counted and not operate in the privacy of
their own home or voting booth.
racrutch:
We even had mail ballots tampered with at the counting station recently it does
go on.
bjornski:
and hey, the losing party, instead of dumping cash on failure commercials, could
just hire a hacker to destroy the whole election. heheheh
virtpol:
another benefit of e-voting is that the ballots will be posted in a big spread sheet
with your secret ID next to it.
PolemicHOST:
And at a party level here, we've had postal votes simply thrown away and the
results issued by the party bosses - and who's to say they cheated with no way
of checking?
virtpol:
well, we are working on protecting the integrity of the system.
Zoon:
I have used e-communication to empower my readership and inform them about
political happenings in my state.
virtpol:
with e-voting, we will post the ballots with secret ID numbers so you can see
that your vote was properly counted.
virtpol:
and that they all add up. at least the electronic votes.
virtpol:
like in a class, where you want to see how you did on the final exam but don't
want others to know.
PolemicHOST:
Marc, is there a URL which takes people through the hows of e-voting, step by
step?
Mugwump:
you can make sure your vote is counted, but how will you make sure all the
other millions of votes are legitimate?
virtpol:
you can't do that with non e-ballots
racrutch:
In Harris County where we have over 1 million registered voters that would be
some spread sheet.
virtpol:
anyone who's ballot is listed wrong can complain, and show their time-stamped
official digital copy of their ballot
Mugwump:
but how will we know if false ballots are posted?
virtpol:
well, it would mean more business for Texas Instruments, wouldn't it? which is
another reason e-voting is good.
Mugwump:
I am more concerned about false ballots being posted than I am making sure my
one ballot is correct
virtpol:
the auditors we've hired will let us know
racrutch:
Or somebody,
bjornski:
no,
we'd subcontract it to some company from
Mugwump:
virtpol:
only ballots that are submitted by voters on the list would be accepted.
bjornski:
ya, no kidding
virtpol:
this, I think, is another issue.
Zoon:
There is a Canadian company which is advancing a technology that will allow
electronic balloting from a fixed location.
bjornski:
PGPkey protection on the votes and timestamp results forms.
virtpol:
but if the Indians were busy voting electronically, they'd have less time to do
other things. The same goes for other groups.
bjornski:
oh yeah, Big Bro doesn't like PGP
PolemicHOST:
Yes, auditors are important, I think - KPMG or Ernst and Young, or whoever
counts the votes for the Oscars.
virtpol:
yes
virtpol:
another advantage of e-voting is that it can be conducted in undemocratic
countries that are opening up to the Net for business reasons.
racrutch:
As I said on the radio once any voting system can be compromised, they're only as
good as the people running them. that too is part of the problem.
virtpol:
think of big countries with growing Net populations but NO elections.
bjornski:
China? Have the official pushing the buttons for you after you've entered your
ID?
virtpol:
we can't solve every flaw in human nature with e-voting. or any other
technology. except maybe genetic engineering, but that's really another issue.
PolemicHOST:
Marc - can you recommend a URL which takes people step-by-step on how
they'd cast an e-vote, how it would be verified etc etc. All I've found is
proprietary stuff for a few systems?
virtpol:
get the ids to voters somehow, then let them vote on servers in Palo Alto and
post the results.
-----
............................Mugwump left ............. :(
racrutch:
Agreed we can only provide the best system and enforcement tools possible.
virtpol:
I don't think there is such a site, rex.
virtpol:
but we can collect e-mails for our mailing list and send it to them when we have
it.
PolemicHOST:
Well judging by the very good questions raised here today, there needs to be
one. The "how" seems to be more of concern than the "why" right now.
virtpol:
better yet, when we have the system up and in beta, we can send them an id and
let
them use and try to
virtpol:
well, I'll take that into account in my next efforts in this area.
PolemicHOST:
While the topic changes regularly here at the Mining Co, we intend to return to
the subject of e-democracy regularly. If you'd like to be kept informed of
upcoming chats, please go to http://www.polemic.net/chatlist.html where you'll
find a form to register for updates.
virtpol:
what's that UTL again, rex?
racrutch:
That's an idea as an election official although a grunt one i would be interested in
that.
virtpol:
the time has certainly gone fast.
PolemicHOST:
http://www.polemic.net/chatlist.html
Zoon:
If we get a candidate elected via electronic tampering we will need to create a
new term for it. We could call it electrogopoly
virtpol:
and the questions have been far above average, sort of like the students in Lake
Wobegon, where, I understand, they don't have e-voting yet.
virtpol:
let's call it electrokleptocracy
PolemicHOST:
elctrogerrymandering
bjornski:
or PACing
virtpol:
there are so many possibilities.
Zoon:
Hey, now no regional disses.
racrutch:
That's how we got our last districts in Texas.
virtpol:
Well, thank you all and I hope we can continue this discussion soon with
ourselves and even more guests.
virtpol:
visit the polemic site and I'll be working on getting the e-vote beta test site up
and running so we can have some real fun with it.
racrutch:
Rex what's the next date and subject?
PolemicHOST:
If you go to http://www.polemic.net/chatlist.html you can sign up to be told when
the next chat is. Thanks for coming. That's the end of the "official" chat, but feel
free to stay on.
Zoon:
I write an online magazine about Minnesota Politics it is growing almost daily
and is helps create a buzz .
Zoon:
I am expecting to launch into Iowa by the first of the year.
bjornski:
Minnesota politics? Can you toss me on it, Zoon? I'm a BIG supporter in the
Ventura race this year (I'm just outside of MPLS)
PolemicHOST:
The next date is a week from now, Wednesday 9 pm EDT. Topic.... um..... any
suggestions? We'll leave e-democracy for a few weeks. Zoon: tell us the URL
bjornski:
or drop me the URL or something
Zoon:
http://checksandbalances.com
bjornski:
aaah, I know a guy that was doing some work for your site. gregor
PolemicHOST:
Thanks Zoon. And thanks Marc for helping host the chat. We will do it again
soon, for certain.
racrutch:
No thoughts off hand but I'll try co-hosting if you want
Zoon:
Just to plug my stuff. It is the site of the first online paid political advertisement.
Zoon:
There is no gregor I have worked with.
PolemicHOST:
Alright Robert. We'll talk in the next couple of days and come up with a topic.
Hope I'll see you all here then. remember the URL
http://www.polemic.net/chatlist.html for notification of the next e-democracy
chat.
bjornski:
that was his handle. his name was Brad. Socialist as they come (and I loved it,
heheh)
racrutch:
Good i'll check Campaigns and Elections etc. for ideas
PolemicHOST:
Zoon: whose ad are you running? Is it really the first paid political ad?!
Zoon:
Yes, by all accounts. Run by Ted Mondale last October covered in Wired and
here is a URL for the Center for Responsive Politics article ran July 15th.
-----
............................virtpol left ............. :(
Zoon:
http://www.crp.org/pubs/ce54/03virtual.htm
PolemicHOST:
Thanks. I'm going to get a transcript of this and will post it to the web. I'll link to
it from http://www.polemic.net/chatlist.html
Zoon:
We also had the first paid issue ad in the history of the net.
Zoon:
The article says that the Washington post online is getting $5000 to $10,000/
per month for issue ads.
racrutch:
I'll leave ya'll now see you soon.
PolemicHOST:
Well I have to go, thanks again to all of you for attending and I hope you'll join
future chats same time, same day, same place.
Zoon:
If you're linking make sure you go to my URL.
-----
............................PolemicHOST left ............. :(
-----
............................racrutch left ............. :(
bjornski:
whoa, your site has grown since I last visited
bjornski:
but I'm gonna go read for a while (pose those unposed questions to Ventura.
He'll answer them!!!) Go Jesse!
-----
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-----
...........................cowboy joined............. :)
cowboy:
Hello Zoon
cowboy:
The key to taking back government is to begin with personal accountability and
responsibility -- no entitlements!
-----
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-----
............................cowboy left ............. :(
-----
-- Log stopped at Wed Aug 12 19:35:10 PDT 1998
Rex also asked me to write a chapter for his online
politics manual about how to campaign once Internet-based voting becomes a
reality. Interestingly enough, the
dynamics of getting elected under a system of Internet voting turn out to be a
lot like those for getting elected in a system where a lot of campaigning is
conducted on the Internet but where people can't yet vote that way. As in the system we have now.
How to Get Elected in the Age of Internet Voting
by Marc Strassman
Executive Director, Campaign for Digital Democracy
copyright 1998 by Transmedia Communications
all rights reserved
Since I've been working hard lately to implement Internet voting systems all over the world, it seemed reasonable to offer some suggestions about how candidates can change their campaigning techniques in order to successfully pursue their electoral goals as these systems come into existence everywhere, including their own districts.
All the advice below, for "Internet campaigning," is completely agnostic as regards content. Nothing will be said about issues, except strictly Internet-related ones. What you want to say about the issues affecting your voters is up to you, whether you base your stands on your own convictions, polling, or a psychic hotline. These suggestions are about process, not content.
The most important thing to remember about electronic campaigning is that if you want voters to vote for you on the Internet, you need to convince them that you (or at least your campaign organization) know how to use the Internet to reach them with your message, whatever that message is. Here, as in other contexts, as Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message.
By showing your potential voters that you are comfortable with Internet technology and possibilities, are open and reachable, creative and competent is using Net resources, you demonstrate to them that you understand what the Web is about, show them that they will be able to establish an ongoing virtual relationship with you, and that they can rely on you, once elected, to provide responsive and understanding support for them in their future interactions with the government in which you will be representing them.
This will persuade them that they should use the Internet to vote for you.
Here are a dozen specific suggestions:
1. Use as much video as you can. Record "self-snippets" of yourself talking about the issues, your opponents, yourself, whatever. Encode and post these clips, then e-mail the URL's to everyone who asks and publicize them in all media.
2. Schedule and attend "virtual town meetings". These can focus on specific issues or be more general. You can hold them in existing public chatrooms or set up your own. Eventually, someone will develop a "secure anonymous chat environment" where the candidate and the citizens can be authenticated as belonging there (because they live in the district) but the citizens can remain anonymous (or make their identities known, as they choose).
3. Consider using a program like the Email Management System to automatically answer your e-mail according to your own specifications regarding keywords in the incoming texts and with the provision of links to your own text, audio, and video files. Assure your voters that you will continue to use such a system after you're elected to help speed their interactions with you and the rest of the government.
4. Participate in online debates, including ones that are text-based, audio-based, and video-based, synchronous and asynchronous. Archive them on your site and urge everyone to visit them.
5. Submit files about yourself, your positions on the issues, and
your campaign, in all media, to sites such as DNET (http://www.dnet.org) which
aggregate candidate data for easy,
comparative
6. Include and feature your campaign website URL in all your earned and paid media.
7. Register with sites such as COIN (Candidates Online Interactive Network), where you can fill out a form reflecting your views on issues, be put into a candidate database, and be matched with legal contributors who like your stands and want to support you with contributions.
8. Clearly address Internet-specific issues such as encryption, privacy, censorship, Internet taxation, and so on, so that your Internet-using constituents will know that these things matter to you, that you are knowledgeable about them and that you consider them important enough to feature them in your campaign.
9. Make an effort to use the platform given to you by your
campaign and/or incumbency to educate and
10. Work to build a community of contributors, supporters, volunteers, media, and citizen/voters that uses the Net to communicate, educate, evaluate, motivate, and coordinate itself politically. Build a virtual-learning-political organization that can use the Net to get you elected, then can use the resources you'll have access to, as an office holder, to build, strengthen, refine and expand this organization in order to more effectively pursue your collective goals, as determined through the synergy created by you, your constituents, and the Net.
Borrow freely from organizational models provided by universities, entrepreneurial start-ups, non-profits, and Fortune 500 companies to build a unique and personalized Net-based political organization that will synergistically leverage the abilities of its citizen/members, the computing and communicating power of the Internet, and your own creative contributions.
You might want to employ the latest in electronic voting systems within this organization to help you formulate your positions on issues and even resolve questions of campaign strategy. By involving your constituents in the over-all and even day-to-day operations of your campaign, you can build bonds of trust and solidarity that will be invaluable in gaining their on-going support.
Furthermore, citizen/voters who have already used an electronic voting system scores of times to register their preferences within the context of your campaign for office will be very predisposed to cast their electronic ballots for you in the election, both because it will have been you and your campaign that have made them familiar with the technology and practice of electronic voting and because they will know that by voting you into office they will assure themselves of the opportunity to continue governing themselves through a responsive and trusted medium supported by Internet technology, mediated and catalyzed by you, and energized by their own participation.
11. Share what you have learned with others, and help them build similar organizations.
12. Consider what the creation and growth of such organizations will mean for party politics as we know it, and what the creation of a Virtual Party organized along these lines, in every political jurisdiction of each country and in loose (networked) affiliation internationally, would mean for world politics.
In summary, to get elected on the Internet, you need to show the voters you know how to use, even innovate, on the Web. Do that, and you will establish the foundation for electing you now and for real accomplishments, using the Web and the organization you will have created, for years after your election.
-30-
On September 18, 1998, I taped a segment in Santa Monica, California, on the "Week in Review" news program, hosted by Century Cable Television Vice President Bill Rosendahl. The topic was electronic voting. Tracy Westen, head of the Center for Government Studies, was also a guest. We both answered questions from panelists who had doubts, and received praise from one who was supportive, about electronic voting. There is no printed transcript of this event. But if you download a RealNetworks RealPlayer G2 from http://www.realnetworks.com or use the one you already have, you can watch it for yourself.
Streaming
Video Appearance on "Week in Review"
to Discuss Electronic Voting
Just insert either of these URLs in the Open Location slot:
pnm://real.vod.intervu.net/smirror/ecom/demo/transmedia/week_in_review_28.rm
or
http://www.polemic.net/marcs1.ram
Of course, the New Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial
has a website, and you are invited to visit it, as they used to say of voting
in the pre-electronic days, "early and often".
NZEET Website URL
The NZEET URL is: http://www.polemic.net/nzeet.html
Chapter
6
Messages
Number 1-7 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
The day after the general election on November 3, 1998, I learned about the Listbot Mailing List Service. I created a mailing list for the Campaign for Digital Democracy immediately, and, on November 9th, sent out the first of a series of messages to the growing membership, which you can join at http://digitaldemocracy.listbot.com.
Message
Number 1 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 09 1998 18:43:45 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
NZEET
To the Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List:
November 9, 1998
Here are two items that may be of interest to you.
The first is the original version of an article by Bernard Steeds, a
reporter for the New Zealand Press Association (their AP). A version of
this text recently appeared in The Evening Post newspaper in New Zealand.
The second is a more detailed explanation of the upcoming New Zealand
Electronic Elections Trial (NZEET), now scheduled for the first quarter of
1999 in that country, within the context of a fundraising appeal for the
$30,000 that will be required to carry out this first nationwide beta test
of a working electronic voting system.
For more information about this initiative from Campaign for Digital
Democracy, or to discuss it with those involved, just drop me an e-mail at
transmedia@pacificnet.net.
More soon about the "99 in 99" campaign to pass digital voting legislation
in every state legislative house in the country next year, the
"Vote-by-(e)Mail project, and renewed efforts to
to California, now that the state will have a Democratic governor
beginning 12:01 am, Monday, January 4, 1999.
Sincerely,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director, Campaign for Digital Democracy
President, Transmedia Communications
NZPA PAR bs
pls q 0600
(Eds: with internet-politics)
By Bernie Steeds of NZPA
Wellington, Nov 4 - About 20,000 New Zealanders will next year
be asked to act as guinea pigs in a mock election in which voting
will be done over the phone and internet, trialing a system which
could one day be used for general elections.
At the same time, hackers will be asked to try to hack into the
system and distort the ``election'' results.
The system, called Integrated Electronic Election System (IEES)
has been developed by Californian company Transmedia Communications
Ltd. It is working in New Zealand with consultant Rex Widerstrom, a
former NZ First adviser.
The system has already been used for elections by private
organisations in the United States. Transmedia sees the trial as the
first step towards offering the system to governments -- including New
Zealand's -- for use in public elections.
Transmedia president Marc Strassman told NZPA by e-mail from
California that New Zealand had been chosen because of its high
level of technological development, ``technically-literate''
population, and tradition of democracy.
``Also, it's not too big and not too small to run a useful trial
at reasonable cost.''
He said the company was trying to recruit 20,850 voters to take
part.
They would be sent confidential pin numbers, and would use these
to register votes either by telephone (via an 0800 number) or
internet,
in a mock election, possibly as soon as Fe
The election is likely to use real political parties, but fake
candidate names, while the referendum is likely to ask a question
about making New Zealand a republic.
The company has already asked political parties to check out the
system and plans this month to start raising the $50,000 it needs to
fund the trial.
Mr Strassman said if the trial went well, ``the next step would
be to make the political case for adopting this electronic voting
system for use in New Zealand and all other countries''.
Electronic voting could lead to lower costs and higher
participation in elections, and would also make it easier for New
Zealanders to vote from overseas, he said.
Chief electoral officer Phil Whelan told NZPA he had not been
contacted by Transmedia or Mr Widerstrom but would be interested in
hearing how the trial went.
His office had been approached with several phone voting and
electronic voting systems, and he believed it was possible some
could be trialled in public elections as early as 2002.
``New Zealand is one of the areas in the world that is keen to
em
something that's going to make it more efficient for them then that's
something we should be considering.''
However, he said, any new system would have to match existing
standards of secrecy and integrity.
Questions would also have to be answered about whether the phone
system could handle two million votes being cast on a single day,
and whether people could get access to touchtone phones or the
internet.
Mr Whelan said public electronic voting booths in places like
lotto or TAB outlets could -- in theory, at least -- be a
possibility.
The IEEC system is one of two significant developments in
internet-based election systems expected to be trialled in New
Zealand.
The other is an internet-based system for holding political
conferences and debates, which was used in this year's German
elections but has not yet been used in English.
NZPA PAR bs
"Request for New Zealand Electronic Elections Trial Funding" (RNZEETF)
Dear Potential Sponsor,
I'm writing to ask for your support in underwriting the world's first
nationwide beta test of Internet- and telephone-based voting, scheduled,
if we can get the funding, for the beginning of 1999 in New Zealand.
This "shadow virtual balloting" will give 20,805 New Zealand voters (1% of
the number of registered voters) an opportunity to use their
computers or their telephones to participate in a mock election where
they can vote on individual candidates, parties, preferences for prime
minister, and even an initiative question ("Should New Zealand become a
republic, and select its own head of state?") (New Zealand doesn't
normally have initiatives in its elections, although it does have
referenda).
This first-ever national test of the Integrated Electronic Elections
System (IEES), which enables electronic voting over the Internet and by
phone, is being planned and carried out by an international group of
companies and organizations, including the Campaign for Digital
Democracy, Transmedia Communications, Polemic Associates, Interactive
Certified Elections, and a Big 4 accounting firm still to be named. The
project will be coordinated by the New Zealand Electronic Voting
Foundation, a non-profit organization, now being formed.
Following what promises to be a lively mock election campaign by the
candidates and parties involved, more than 20,000 New Zealanders will go
to their computers or their phones and access an electronic ballot that
will offer them the same choices they'd have on a paper ballot.
Clicking their mouse or punching their phone's keypad will let them
record their choices as to candidates, parties, and the initiative
question. Their computer screen or phone speaker will display or read
back their choices. Then the voter will validate these choices by
clicking on the "submit" button or by punching a phone keypad number.
The IEES is fast, convenient, and secure.
The totals will be tabulated and announced online to the participating
voters, then to the media. Data will be gathered on the operations of
the system in order to improve its performance in future elections.
Improved and refined versions of this Integrated Electronic Elections
System will be tested in other countries and, eventually, will be
offered to governments worldwide for normal operational use in elections
at all levels. The implementation of secure, convenient electronic
elections technology will reduce government costs, increase convenience to
voters and hence turnout levels, make voting more secure, as well as
easier for the disabled, and make it possible for voters away from their
home precincts to vote wherever they can find Internet or phone access.
Interactive Certified Elections will be providing the core technology
for this test and will be managing the voting operations. Campaign for
Digital Democracy, the leading advocacy group for online voting, will
handle media coverage for the event, along with Transmedia
Communications. Polemic Associates, a global consortium of political
consultants based in New Zealand, will coordinate relations with the New
Zealand political community and recruit 20,805 voters for the test. The
major accounting firm will audit the voting procedures, as well as the
project's budget.
Interactive Certified Elections will receive $15,000. Campaign for
Digital Democracy and Transmedia Communications will receive $5,000, as
will Polemic Associates. Five thousand dollars will be used for
administrative support and unforeseen expenses.
We are asking foundations and corporations such as yours, which have
expressed a commitment to building a more democratic 21st century
through the creative application of this century's best technology, to
join with us and provide some of the $30,000 we need to allow 20,000
free men and women to become the first to use the tools that we hope
will become to future democratic civilizations was the printing press
was to the Enlightenment and fire was to our Neo-Lithic ancestors, a
means of raising all mankind a little higher out of the mud and a little
closer to
the stars.
Message
Number 2 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 13 1998 00:41:27 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Christian Science Monitor Writes about Cyber-Initiatives in California
The URL for this page is:
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/11/13/fp1s2-csm.shtml
The Christian Science Monitor
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1998
In California, Taking the Initiative - Online
Internet site to draft ballot measure hints at a
future of democracy by computer.
Paul Van
Slam
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
SAN FRANCISCO
If you think the election season is buttoned up and put away, think
again.
Another has already begun in California, which this week delivered
one of its signature innovations in the workings of democracy.
Combining a hot topic with hot technology, it could be a glimpse of
where citizen power is headed in the 21st century.
Supporters of education reform here have posted an Internet site
(www.localchoice2000.com) that encourages the public to help draft
a ballot initiative for the spring 2000 election. Its overarching aim is
to increase local control of schools.
The issue itself is hot enough. Public opinion polls show education is
the top worry among Californians, and any new citizen-based policy
here could well reverberate nationally.
But the most controversial feature of this measure, and one that could
spread instantly regardless of whether the measure is ever approved,
is the process itself, something akin to writing legislation with several
million co-sponsors.
To critics, it's a logical excess in an already excessive process that
has
turned the ballot initiative into a fourth
albeit one with almost no rules of order. To others, it's an inspired use
of
technology to help
aplenty that traditional voter turnout is in decline.
In any event, the melding of cyberspace and democracy is surely on
its way, say a number of analysts.
Drafting measures
online can
participation and lead
to initiatives with
fewer obvious flaws.
Of course, that
only to those with
online connections.
"It's part of an interesting, important, and inevitable trend. The
Internet is uniquely susceptible to this form of participatory
democracy," says Tracy Westen, president of the nonprofit Center
for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles.
Pin numbers for voting
Beyond just writing ballot measures interactively over the Internet, a
number of analysts expect some states to begin permitting registration
and voting from computer terminals over the next several years.
Backers of the education measure being drafted here intend to seek
permission from the state to be the first to gather the 400,000
signatures necessary to put it on the ballot electronically. They would
use pin numbers like those used at ATMs.
Such a step in itself could revolutionize the ballot-initiative process by
making it vastly easier and cheaper to qualify measures.
Digital "signatures" are already legal in California for many business
purposes, but they are not yet permitted in the election code. A
spokesman says Secretary of State Bill Jones will convene a task
force next month that will begin exploring Internet voting and ballot
signatures.
The main backer of this education initiative is Silicon Valley venture
capitalist Tim Draper. He was appointed to the state board of
education this year.
While "choice" has become almost synonymous with vouchers, Mr.
Draper says he's not certain what the final language of this initiative
will include. But he says his inclination is to leave public dollars in
public schools.
The only guiding principle for the initiative is to achieve greater local
control and decisionmaking for schools. The online ballot site asks for
comments and suggestions from anyone interested in helping "take back our
schools."
California is among 23 mostly Western and Midwestern states that
permit ballot initiatives. Activist states like California and Oregon
have enacted controversial policies on everything from
physician-assisted suicide to affirmative action, stirring national debate
on issues that did not survive the conventional legislative process.
"It has become excessive," says Norma Brecher of the California
League of Women Voters. The League intends to recommend a
comprehensive package of reforms early next year. They will either
encourage legislation or take the reforms directly to the ballot with an
initiative of their own.
Tweaking a popular process
Reformists advocate a number of changes, but some of the most
prominent include stricter vetting of initiative language to avoid
flagrant legal conflicts, clearer disclosure of initiative backers, and a
process that would increase the odds of a legislative resolution to issues
before they go on the ballot.
Attorney Robin Johansen was involved this year in drawing up a
reform initiative on behalf of San Diego Padres owner John Moores,
but the measure never made it to the ballot. Though they may try
again, Ms. Johansen concedes major reform is difficult "because the
initiative process is so popular."
Still, Utah, Mississippi, and Montana have recently approved reforms
to their initiative processes. In Utah, for instance, a two-thirds
majority is now required to pass measures related to wildlife and the
environment.
Some think cyberspace can help improve the initiative process.
Drafting
measures online, like the current effort here, can
participation and lead, in the end, to initiatives with fewer obvious
flaws. Of
course, that
computers and online connections.
In all, putting the electoral process in cyberspace "saves money, is
more convenient and once it's in place, can be even more secure than
what we have now," says Marc Strassman of the Campaign for
Digital Democracy in southern California.
Still, critics of the initiative process like author Peter Schrag believe
involving more cooks in the stew is not necessarily a progressive step.
Speaking of the LOCALCHOICE 2000 initiative, he says, "This is not my idea
of political leadership."
Message
Number 3 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 13 1998 18:58:07 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
New Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial Website is Launched
November 13, 1998
Los Angeles, California
USA
Those of you on the Campaign for Digital Democracy mailing list who want
to take a look at the website of the world's first nationwide beta test of
an electronic voting system can go to:
http://www.polemic.net/nzeet.html
Feel free to send any comments you have about the form or content of this
site to:
digitaldemocracy@listbot.com
and they'll be re-posted through this list to all the other members of the
CDD list.
Any of you with contacts, connections, friends, relatives, or business
associates in New Zealand, please feel free to send the NZEET site's URL
to any of them you think might want to be among the 20,000 beta testers we
are trying to recruit.
Sincerely,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Message
Number 4 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 14 1998 14:08:23 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Waivers for Electronic Signature Gathering
To the Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy mailing list:
In 1996, I created Campaign for Digital Democracy to work for the passage
of the Virtual Voting Rights Initiative, which I had just written.
According to the official Legislative Counsel's Digest of the original
AB44, which was identical to the VVRI, except for harsher penalties for
electoral fraud:
"This bill would require the Secretary of State to design, develop, and
implement a digital electoral system for the collection, storage, and
processing of electronically generated and transmitted digital messages to
permit any eligible person to register to vote, sign any
petition, and vote in any election using the digital system. A willful
manipulation of the digital electoral system would be a crime....
"The bill would require the Secretary of State and all county elections
officials to permit the use of digital signatures for voter registration,
voting, and signing of petitions."
At the time, I asked the California Secretary of State's Office to allow
me to use the Net to collect some of the 492,000 signatures required to
put an initiative on the California ballot. Saying that that could only
be done if the VVRI had already passed, they refused to allow us to
collect electronic signatures online. They eventually grudgingly sort of
agreed that it might be OK if I reproduced the complex initiative form
visually online for people to download, print out, sign, and return by
snail mail. This approach was unsuccessful.
Now, according to an article in the Friday, November 13, 1998, issue of
the Christian Science Monitor
(http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/11/13/index.html):
"Backers of the education measure being drafted here intend to seek
permission from the state to be the first to gather the 400,000
signatures necessary to put it on the ballot electronically. They would
use pin numbers like those used at ATMs.
"Such a step in itself could revolutionize the ballot-initiative process
by making it vastly easier and cheaper to qualify measures."
"Digital "signatures" are already legal in California for many business
purposes, but they are not yet permitted in the election code. A spokesman
says Secretary of State Bill Jones will convene a task force next month
that will begin exploring Internet voting and ballot signatures."
Today I sent the following e-mail to Secretary of State Bill Jones:
Dear Secretary Jones,
If Tim Draper gets permission to collect initiative signatures online
for his LocalChoice initiative, I respectfully request the same
permission to collect them that way for my Virtual Voting Rights
Initiative.
Sincerely,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Watch this space for news of his response.
Sincerely,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Message
Number 5 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 17 1998 20:50:22 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
California Secretary of State's Office Says "No Waivers" for Electronic Signature Gathering
Last Saturday, I e-mailed the Office of the California Secretary of State
for clarification about their position on electronic signature gathering
on initiative petitions.
This afternoon, Cathy Mitchell, the director of the initiative division in
that office, sent me the following e-mail:
Marc,
The SOS is putting together a task force to study Internet
voting and all that the concept would entail -- from digital signatures
for voting to an electronic voter roll to electronic petition signatures.
There is an initiative campaign that has expressed an interest
in collecting digital signatures on petitions over the Internet, but we
have told them that current law does not allow for the collection of
anything other than a manual signature for elections purposes -- and
practically speaking, digital signatures could not be verified for
authenticity against the registration affidavits the way manual
signatures are, so we would have an apples to oranges comparison at the
county level if we were to permit it.
Much studying must be done before this interesting concept can
become a reality. So the short answer is "no", we will not be providing a
waiver of the signature requirements.
Hope this answers your questions.
Cathy
Message
Number 6 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 19 1998 01:22:50 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Re-posted Announcement of NZEET Launch from NZEET Mail List
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List:
Campaign for Digital Democracy is co-sponsoring--with Polemic Associates
of New Zealand--the world's first national electronic voting beta test,
early next year, in New Zealand.
I'm passing on this mailing from Rex Widerstrom, New Zealand Electronic
Electoral Trial (NZEET) Project Director, New Zealand.
Everyone is invited to visit the site at:
http://www.polemic.net/nzeet.html
If you're a journalist interested in reporting on this site and the NZEET,
please send me an e-mail at transmedia@pacificnet.net so we can arrange an
e-mail or phone interview.
If you're a New Zealander, please visit the site and consider signing up
to be a triallist.
If you want to support the future of digital voting worldwide, please
consider visiting the site and making a large or small contribution
through the newly-installed contribution system.
Cheers,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director, Campaign for Digital Democracy
President, Transmedia Communications
Hello NZ Electronic Electoral Trial List Members:
The NZEET web site is now open for business. We still have a little work
to do, in terms of establishing a Media Area and adding links to other
e-democracy resources. But the site has a page where new traillists can
join, a FAQ (including provision for people to ask questions), and a
discussion board.
There is also information and a contact form for potential corporate and
charitable sponsors, so if you know of any now's the time to point them to
the site.
And there's even a way for people to contribute smaller amounts via credit
cards or cheques.
As with any new site there are probably a few "bugs" so we'd appreciate
you
letting us know of any - and how the site looks in a range of
- by responding either to the list or privately to nzeet@polemic.net
NZ Telecom's Xtra Internet service have agreed to publicise the site in
their weekly email newsletter. They estimate that when that message goes
out we'll get approximately 14,000 visitors, so your numbers are likely to
swell considerably very soon.
In the meantime, don't forget that this is also a discussion list - if
anyone has any early thoughts or observations, feel free to contribute.
Regards
Rex Widerstrom
Project Director (NZ)
Message
Number 7 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 20 1998 18:41:57 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
NetPulse Covers NZEET
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List:
There's a great website at http://www.politicsonline.com/ that's full of
links to live and archived political videos and a lot of other relevant
material.
The next edition of their newsletter, called NetPulse, will be out soon.
Here's an advance look at their coverage of our 20,000-voter mock election
in New Zealand:
ONLINE ELECTIONS ON THE WAY? A new study by ActivMedia
(http://www.activmedia.com) highlights how two of three Internet users
think it would be a good idea to vote for elected officials online.
Interestingly, there’s some work being done on that exact topic. The New
Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial (http://www.polemic.net/nzeet.html) is
a New Zealand-US project that is seeking to raise $30,000 to conduct a
mock election of 20,000 volunteer virtual voters from New Zealand. An
alpha test of a few people will occur this year and a beta test of the
volunteers is expected to occur next year. In Australia, VoteBot
(http://www.votebot.com) is an online polling and survey firm. It’s
interesting because it’s developing technology that could be applied to
online
voting in real elections, not just surveys.
We’ll stay tuned.
NetPulse is the online news service of Politics Online
(http://www.politicsonline.com). At the
same time that they hired me there to be their "contributing editor for
California," they also carried this item on November 20, 1998, about the
New Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial
First
NetPulse Report on
New Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial
ONLINE ELECTIONS ON THE WAY? A new study by ActivMedia
(http://www.activmedia.com) highlights how two of three Internet users think
it would be a good idea to vote for elected officials online.
Interestingly, there’s some work being done on that exact topic. The New
Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial (http://www.polemic.net/nzeet.html) is a
New Zealand-US project that is seeking to raise $30,000 to conduct a mock
election of 20,000 volunteer virtual voters from New Zealand. An alpha test
of a few people will occur this year and a beta test of the volunteers is
expected to occur next year. In Australia, VoteBot (http://www.votebot.com)
is an online polling and survey firm. It’s interesting because it’s
developing technology that could be applied to online voting in real
elections, not just surveys. We’ll stay tuned.
Chapter
7
Messages
Number 8-23 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Around Thanksgiving, 1998, the pace of everything sped
up. World affairs were exploding, and so
was the volume of messages about electronic voting that I was generating and
receiving. The key challenge of the time
was to upgrade my message-generating and -transmitting infrastructure
sufficiently to keep up with the faster rate.
I also tried to keep my ideas fresh and new, and began making notes
about, but not communicating publicly, the substance of policies for Internet
Parties and a strategy for an Internet Party rise to power.
Message
Number 8 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Date:
Nov 23 1998 23:15:31 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Streaming Video Clip of Answers to the Most Common Objections to Electronic Voting
To the Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List:
This link is finally working, so click on it if you want to see and hear
answers to the most common objections to Electronic Voting.
http://www.polemic.net/marcs1.ram
If you don't have the RealPlayer G2 full beta you need to view this clip,
go to
http://www.realnetworks.com and download it for free.
Message
Number 9 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Date:
Nov 24 1998 18:56:00 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Florida iVoting, Oregon Lawsuit
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List:
Here are two articles dealing with "alternative" means of voting. The
first reports on the latest development in Florida's efforts to move ahead
with Internet voting. The second deals with a struggle in Oregon over
vote-by-mail and, by implication, vote-by-e-mail.
Electronic Electoral Reform Moves Ahead in Sunshine State
Looks like Florida continues at the head of the Internet voting pack.
Paul Craft, Voting System Section manager in the Department of State
there, reported on November 24th: "I'm working on the Florida
Internet/Intranet Voting Systems Standards this week. I'll meet with
counsel next week and start the process of promulgating the standards as
part of our administrative code which will give the standards the force of
administrative law. Any system used in a pilot project will require
certification under the new standards."
VIP Fights to Block M60 in Oregon
What Oregon's recently-passed (by a 69-31 vote) Measure 60 does, according
to Phil Keisling, their Secretary of State
(http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/exechp.htm), is "essentially,
automatically make every elector an 'absentee voter,' without their having
to do any paper work. Every registered voter gets a ballot automatically.
They can then return it, how they want--return mail, or dropping it off--
and they can do it WHEN they want."
M. Miller Baker, of Carr, Goodson, Lee & Warner, the Washington, D.C. law
firm litigating to overturn the measure on behalf of the Voting Integrity
Project of Arlington, VA, (http://voting-integrity.org/) agrees about what
the new law does, but thinks doing it violates
2USC7 and 3USC1, which require a uniform date for holding federal
elections. He says Measure 60 "makes the exception the rule." Miller
sees universal absentee ballot voting reducing ballots to the status of
"junk mail," which will be thrown away and reclaimed by perpetrators who
will use these discarded ballots to cast fraudulent votes. He's also
worried about the loss of the secret ballot under this legislation.
Voters could become "subject to manipulation by employers, churches, or
family members," he says.
Clergy holding "voting nights" when they instruct their parishioners how
to vote or one politically-motivated parent collecting the ballots of his
or her spouse and voting-age children, voting all the ballots himself or
herself, and serving dinner only after all the family members have signed
their filled-in-by-him or filled-in-by-her ballots are two scenarios that
the VIP suit in Federal Court in Portland are designed to block, according
to the lawyer.
Asked about the relevance of this case for Internet-based voting, Miller
said that the "legal arguments" applied here as well, but that he hadn't
yet gotten around to thinking through the secrecy implications for that
method of casting ballots. He said that the phenomenon of directed or
coerced group voting at a church might still take place with
Internet-voting if all the voter/parishioners were using hand-held
computers.
Phil Keisling disagrees. He told an Oregonian reporter, "I'd be
embarrassed to make this legal argument--but then, I'm not a lawyer." He
makes the alternative argument that if allowing voters to cast ballots on
any day other than election day were unconstitutional, no
state would be in compliance. He cites Measure 60's strong showing in the
polls, and says, "Clearly, VIP folks don't LIKE vote by mail, but there's
a world of difference between an opinion and a strong legal argument.
Oregonians have debated the various merits and possible downsides of this
for 15 years--e.g., alleged fraud, coercion, loss of ballot secrecy, etc.
etc.--and are ready to move on. The irony is, lawsuits like this will
likely give the issue more national press, and may make more states say,
"Hmmm...with record low turnout in the last election, maybe Oregon is on
to something here."
Voting Integrity Project attorney Miller is undaunted. He says that when
he
election laws there, state officials laughed at him and his arguments the
same way Oregon officials are laughing now. Nine
justices of the US Supreme Court eventually agreed with Miller in that
case. Motions for summary judgment will be filed next week by both sides
in Portland. You can be sure that the Justices won't be using absentee
ballots
to decide this case, if it gets to them.
Message
Number 10 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 25 1998 23:41:05 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Electronic Voting in UK, NZ, and California
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List:
This article appeared on Thanksgiving Day in The Guardian Online, a
British electronic newspaper. Except for a small mistake about when the
nationwide electronic voting trial will take place (it says December,
rather
than Fe
test) Dan Jellinek has written a fine article about moves towards
electronic voting both in Great Britain and New Zealand, and mentions that
"many states such as California are now studying moves towards Internet
voting."
Part of CDD's strategy is to inspire a friendly and peaceful competition
among the political jurisdictions of the world, so that each of them will
try harder to achieve virtual voting for its citizens as soon, securely,
conveniently, and cost-effectively as possible. Reports such as this help
let everyone know that efforts are underway in other places to provide
virtual voting opportunities for residents of various countries.
You can access the article by clicking here:
http://online.guardian.co.uk/two.html
You might
want to stay on the site and
very literate newspaper, and "cool" or not, Britain these days is a pretty
interesting place, one that can be studied profitably to gain a clearer
understanding of the political, as well as the economic, cultural, and
social, environment and evolution of the United States, or just for fun.
Or you can read it here:
Electronic elections will give mouse the vote
The stubby pencil, used in curtained booths across the nation on
election day, could be replaced within a few years by a modem and a mouse,
writes Dan Jellinek. Voters could register their choice either from home
via the Internet or in an online kiosk using a pin number, just like
making a credit card booking or using a cash machine.
Next week the Local Government Management Board
(http://www.lgmb.gov.uk), representing senior council officials, meets the
election officials' body the Association of Electoral Administrators with
the intention of testing a pilot system within two years and holding a
full online election within three.
"The critical point is secure identification of the individual,"
says Andrew Larner, LGMB information society project manager. "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 world's first national electronic voting trial is scheduled for
testing in New Zealand, in December, with around 21,000 volunteers from
across the country - about 1 per cent of the voting population.
NZEET, the New Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial
(http://www.polemic.net/nzeet.html), will use touch-tone telephone voting
systems alongside Internet voting. It is being operated by a non-profit
trust set up by New Zealand political consultancy Polemic in collaboration
with the California-based electronic voting lobby group Campaign for
Digital Democracy.
The first stage of testing will refine the user interface. In a full
trial early next year participants will vote for fictitious candidates who
will represent all registered political parties. Friendly hackers will be
invited
to test security by attempting to
Political parties will construct lobbying Web sites for their
fictitious candidates, with links from the NZEET home page.
Marc Strassman, the executive director of the Campaign for Digital
Democracy, predicts that electronic democracy will play an important role
in Britain's political evolution in the next few years, especially with
the creation of national assemblies using modern technology and the plans
for further devolution.
The recent elections to the US Congress were accompanied by a frenzy
of online activity by politicians and voters, and many states such as
California are now studying moves towards Internet voting.
A conference at the George Washington University in Washington DC on
December 7 http://www.gspm.org/politicsonline) will analyse the issues
which have been raised.
25 November 1998
Message
Number 11 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 27 1998 03:18:25 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Big Blue Leader Strongly and Publicly Endorses "Net-based voting"
Big Blue Leader Strongly and Publicly Endorses "Net-based voting"
By Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
info@vpac.org
On Wednesday, November 25th, C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 cablecast two high-powered
panel discussions from Harvard University, the epicenter of high-powered
discussion.
At a weighty conclave on "The Future of Journalism" at the Joan
Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F.
Kennedy School of Government, Washington Post reporter David Broder
attacked those who would transform the United States from the "republic"
it was intended to be under the Constitution to a "democracy," where
citizens marginalize their elected representatives and make laws
themselves through the initiative process. He noted that this pernicious
habit seems to be especially rampant in the western states of the United
States.
Not far away, while participating in an equally august discussion of
"Privatization, Globalization, and Constitutional Structures," Charles
Fried, formerly a professor at the Harvard Law School and now merely an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, pointed to the "democratic deficit" that is arising in
Europe as the consolidation and expansion of the administrative structures
of the European Union run ahead of the development of democratic means for
the control of these structures.
One answer to this problem and other, similar ones, suggested a panelist
from Kenya, would be to focus on the individual, and create a "governance
beyond government" that would empower and protect the rights of citizens
in an age of globalization and privatization, in which national
governments are increasingly "hollow" anyway.
One thing these statements show is that being high-powered and being at
Harvard University is no guarantee that you'll come to the same
conclusions, which is, of course, the whole idea at Harvard, or at least
part of the whole idea.
One of the panelists at the "Future of Journalism" conference mentioned
that perhaps the most-improved newspaper now being published in the US was
USA Today, which, it was noted, found it could not succeed by going after
the lowest common denominator of reader and so went "upmarket" in search
of a higher class of clientele. An example of that "flight to quality"
can be found, I think, in this article from the November 16, 1998, op-ed
page of that newspaper. This article, written by the chairman and CEO of
IBM, indicates that the advocacy and pursuit of virtual voting has been
transformed from a fringe activity of a few visionaries into an item high
on the agenda of the technological and political Establishment.
USA TODAY * MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1998 15A
THE FORUM
Next time, let us boldly vote as no democracy has before
By Louis V. Gerstner
The number of eligible American voters who took time to go to their local
polling places and cast a ballot this month was predictably anemic. At
34%, the turnout marks a 50-year low, ranking the U.S. at or near the
bottom of the world democracies in voter participation.
Once again, our national post-election dialogue is punctuated by laments
over what we, by rote, label "voter apathy." But while it's easy to lay
the blame for poor voter turnout on an uninterested electorate, or perhaps
the politics of meanness, or television, one simple truth is that the act
of voting is antiquated, inconvenient and just too hard.
It's time to harness technology to the service of democracy.
Most Americans are working longer hours, struggling harder to balance
work and family, and the process of voting is turning people off. We trek
to a polling location in a school or firehouse, stand in line, wait to be
authenticated and then finally cast our ballot (an interesting, if
intimidating, exercise in chart-reading, lever-pulling, switch-flipping
and, in some precincts, poking pinholes in paper).
All this in a day when information technology--especially the
Internet--is in the process of transforming everything from how we design
cars to the way we buy them. We can pay our bills, secure a mortgage,
renew a driver's license or trade a stock from our den or office.
We've improved the speed, efficiency and convenience of many of the daily
patterns of American life, with more to come.
Yet the vote--the defining ritual and central task of American
democracy--stands stiller than a mastodon entombed in the tarry pits of La
Brea.
It's time to ask how this technology might improve participation in our
national elections. It's time we acknowledge that the process of voting
is at least an equal partner in this problem, and we have to commit to
make it easier, faster and more convenient.
Oregon has stepped up to this by promoting mail-in balloting. State
residents like the system so much, they voted last week to make the mail
the state's preferred voting method, replacing polling places.
The message is clear: We either improve convenience or resign ourselves
to the status quo. I don't believe the latter choice is acceptable--not
when the technology exists to allow us to cast a ballot over the Internet
from the comfort of our home, or with the convenience of an ATM-like kiosk
at work or at a traditional polling location. The technology is here
today.
In rethinking the process of voting, it's inevitable that we'll have to
confront human nature and institutional inertia. We'll have to answer
questions about security and privacy. American citizens will have to know
that the confidentiality of their votes will be maintained. We'll all
want to be assured about the integrity of our system of one person, one
vote.
The combination of large-scale computing behind the scenes of our
government infrastructures and technologies such as smart cards and
biometrics for digital identification will deliver all the security we
take for granted in the current process: that any individual is, in fact,
entitled to vote; that they are who they say they are; that only official
vote counters can see their ballots; that it can't be changed, and you
can't later deny you cast it.
The technology exists today to do all this. Much of it is at work every
time you go to the Net to transmit a confidential document or buy a book.
We know these questions will come because similar questions have already
been asked and answered across a variety of industries and inside
thousands of
institutions that are em
"e-businesses" and make fundamental changes to existing processes.
Perhaps more important, we'll have to address concerns about whether we
can make Net-based voting possible for all our citizens or only those
fortunate enough to have a PC at home. Only about 20% of Americans use
the Net today. While that number is increasing at a galloping pace--more
than 50,000 people come on line every day--the net won't be in every
American home for the foreseeable future.
Obviously any system, including the current one, is more convenient for
some than for others, but this challenge can be addressed by making if
possible for people to vote using computers at work or at walk-up kiosks
in public buildings and places.
Bear in mind that no one is suggesting that Net-based voting will
supplant the traditional physical process. They'll exist in parallel,
with the Net as a complementary option for some who will choose it--and I
believe, for many who will choose it over their current practice of
abstaining on Election Day. This effort would augment other initiatives
that occasionally bubble up, such as creating a two-week voting window, or
holding elections on Saturday.
Finally, let's go down this road with open eyes. Applying the available
technology is not insurance against knaves or fools in high office.
That's always the great gamble of democracy and what caused Winston
Churchill to say, famously, that "Democracy is the worst form of
government--except for all those other forms that have been tried from
time to time." Increasing voter participation must continue to be a
priority for democracies because, in the aftermath of the midterm
elections of 1998, this much is certain: The approach we've tried for so
long simply doesn't work. We should confront the fact that there's more
to the problem of low voter turnout than complacency or a bored
resignation over the rate and pace of change in state, local or federal
government.
Having demonstrated that cajoling, lecturing and even trying to shame
people to the polls isn't the solution, we owe it to ourselves and our
country to try something new.
Louis V. Gerstner is chairman and CEO of IBM.
Message
Number 12 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Nov 27 1998 03:40:41 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
NZEET Site Awarded Political Site of the Day Award
Thanks mainly to the creativity and hard work of Rex Widerstrom, New
Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial Project Director (New Zealand), the
NZEET Website has won the Thanksgiving Day Political Site of the Day Award.
We are proud and happy to have won this recognition and glad that it will
mean more traffic to the site and more electronic voting trial volunteers
and, who knows, more contributors to help us defray the $30,000 cost of
this project.
You can see that I'm not making this up by going to
http://www.aboutpolitics.com/.
NZEET has a big gray graphic announcing its selection, which you can see
if you go there right now, and will remain on the PSOTD list and in their
archive
for some time, so drop by and take a look.
Trying to see just how far I could take this "re-purposing"
concept, I wrote to several of the reporters who'd covered this story and asked
them to answer some questions about how they worked and the evolution of
politics in cyberspace. Then I cut and
pasted and ended up with this posting.
Message
Number 13 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Dec 02 1998 12:12:40 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Covering Political Cyberspace
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
I recently wrote to several of the reporters who've covered Campaign for
Digital Democracy for stories of theirs, asking them a few questions about
how they cover the Internet side of politics. Rebecca Fairley Raney, Dan
Jellinek,
and Paul Van Slam
to respond.
Rebecca Fairley Raney is a free-lance reporter whose work usually appears
in The New York Times.
Dan Jellinek writes for The Guardian (UK) and often appears in their
Online section, which is both the online section of the Guardian dealing
with technology issues and the name of their print section dealing with
the same subjects.
Paul Van
Slam
Christian Science Monitor.
Here's what they had to say:
1. Does reporting on political cyberspace differ in any significant way
from technology reporting, or political reporting, or reporting generally
and, if so, how?
Raney:
This area is so interesting because you never have to write the same story
twice. Even if you write twice about the same topic, the story is always
very different the second time.
Jellinek:
The political media got very excited earlier this year about the party
leaders conducting discussions online, but these were in truth fairly
basic affairs and the non-specialist national media - i.e. the political
media who do not understand computing - on the whole were only impressed
because they do not fully grasp what is already possible from the
technology. For example, William Hague, the leader of the Conservative
Opposition, did hold a live chat with members of the public online but
conducted it using AOL instead of the Internet proper, a techno-gaffe in
my opinion but none of the political reporters would have picked it up.
The Prime Minister Tony Blair went one worse and had his officials select
some questions beforehand to answer. But they are improving all the time -
Tony Blair's Downing St site recently hosted a bulletin-board style debate
on China in which the PMs of France and Germany participated, a more meaty
and meaningful event, and so as politicians become more clued up I imagine
the coverage will follow.
Van Slam
The only trouble I see with cyberspace reporting of any kind is a
temptation to view the world from a desk, or computer terminal. In
politics, and other reporting, there is no substitute for getting as close
to the real candidate and the real voters as possible. You need
that balance, along with what the Web has to offer.
2. Is it ever a problem for you to understand the technology involved?
How do you make sure that your readers are able to understand the
technology involved?
Raney:
The technology is the easy part; I was a technologist before I was a
technology writer. If anything, I have to be careful not to get too
technical in pieces for general audiences.
Jellinek:
I write about the issues on the whole, and very rarely the technology -
and in writing for a national newspaper I must make every sentence
completely comprehensible to anybody - or aim to. This is a very good
discipline - if you can't explain it to anyone, why not? What
interests me the most is what the Internet and other new technologies can
do in our daily lives, how it will transform society, and communications
in the home and workplace - but not how internet protocols work. But I do
understand a certain amount about the nuts and bolts, which helps in
explaining it.
Van Slam
Yes. I figure if I can understand the basics, I should be able to explain
it in a basic way.
3. In light of the recent elections, what trends seem to be emerging in
the area of political use of the Internet?
Raney:
E-mail. E-mail. E-MAAAILLL!
Van Slambourck:
Campaign finance disclosure, candidate info-sites, live voting results and
more information available to more people.
4. What do you expect will be the next few steps in the evolution of
political cyberspace?
Raney:
I'd be a damn fool if I said I knew. My view remains that we have no idea
how this area will evolve, simply because the audience for 2000 has not
arrived. These people have not even bought computers yet.
In any medium, and especially this one, it's the audience that drives the
evolution.
Jellinek:
trends/evolution: the sky's the limit, it is a really exciting area. The
Internet was made to enhance democracy, although it is a long way off
achieving it - first step is for access to pervade all parts of society.
Then it can become a tool for all parts of the political process from
political self-education by aggrieved members of public to lobbying,
campaigning (digital petitions), voting, use as a means of communication
between politicians and public, to hold referenda, to conduct opinion
polls . . .there could be ethical problems down the line though - would
you like a load of political spam arriving from prospective candidates
every day?
Thanks to all three for their work covering the evolution of political
cyberspace and for taking time out from their hyperbusy schedules to share
what they know about what they do.
Rebecca Fairley Raney's article about electronic voting, "Voting on the
Web: Not Around the Corner, but on the Horizon," can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/li
Dan Jellinek's article about the electronic voting in California, Great
Britain, and the New Zealand Electronic Electoral Trial in The Guardian
Online can be found at:
http://online.guardian.co.uk/two.html
Paul Van
Slam
electronic initiatives in California can be found at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/11/13/fp1s2-csm.shtml
Their new articles will probably be found in and around these same sites,
so bookmark these spots and check back often.
Sincerely,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Message
Number 14 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Dec 02 1998 19:47:25 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Florida Begins Setting Standards for Internet-based Voting
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
I'm forwarding this e-mail, which I just received, on to all of you
because:
1. it shows how far we've come and how fast we're moving in the direction
of electronic voting
2. it will allow those of you who want to to get additional information
from Paul Craft about the formulation of standards for the certification
of Internet-based voting systems
3. it will encourage wide-spread participation in Florida's rule-creation
project by expert and interested parties, thereby facilitating a
thorough-going process that will result in regulations and standards for
Internet voting that can be adopted not just in Florida but in other
states and countries as well, thereby setting the stage for uniform
technical standards, which will encourage both competition from vendors
and adoption by multiple jurisdictions
4. it will announce to officials in jurisdictions other than Florida that
serious progress is occurring on the electronic voting front and that they
need to get moving themselves if they want to stay current
5. it will encourage other jurisdictions to consider working together
with Florida to develop workable uniform national standards in the area of
electronic voting.
So get involved!
To: Interested Parties
From: Paul Craft, Florida Division of Elections
Subject: Notice of Proposed Rule Development to Set Standards For
Internet and Intranet Voting Systems
At the bottom of this message I have attached the text of our Notice of
Proposed Rule Development. The Notice was filed today and will appear in
the December 11, 1998 issue of the Florida Administrative Weekly which we
publish on-line at: http://election.dos.state.fl.us/faw/index.htm.
This is our public announcement that we are working on a rule to set
standards for provisional certification of voting systems which transmit
untabulated ballot images or ballot data through the internet or any
intranet.
A rule development workshop may be scheduled on December 29, 1998.
If anyone is interested in providing input to the development of this rule
please call, e-mail, or write me prior to December 29, 1998.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Paul W. Craft, CPA, CISA
Computer Audit Analyst
Florida Department of State
Division of Elections
Voting System Section
401 S. Monroe Street, Room 203C
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0250
Phone (850) 921-4110
Fax (850) 488-6174
E-mail pcraft@mail.dos.state.fl.us
Website http://election.dos.state.fl.us
The text of the notice follows:
___________________________________
NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULE DEVELOPMENT
DEPARTMENT: Department of State, Division of Elections
RULE TITLE: Certification of Electronic or Electromechanical Voting
systems
RULE NO.: 1S-5.001
PURPOSE AND EFFECT: To establish minimum standards for certification and
provisional approval of hardware and software for electronic and
electromechanical voting systems.
SUBJECT AREA TO BE ADDRESSED: Development and adoption by reference
of a form titled Florida Internet and Intranet Voting Systems Standards which
will set minimum standards for provisional certification of all voting
systems which transmit untabulated ballot images or ballot data through
the internet or any intranet.
SPECIFIC AUTHORITY: 101.015, 101.294, FS.
LAW IMPLEMENTED: 101.141, 101.151, 101.161, 101.5605, 101.5606,
101.5607, 101.5608, 101.5609, and 102.166(9)(a), FS.
IF REQUESTED IN WRITING AND NOT DEEMED UNNECESSARY BY THE
AGENCY HEAD, A RULE DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP WILL BE HELD AT
THE TIME, DATE AND PLACE SHOWN BELOW:
TIME AND DATE: 9:30 AM, December 29, 1998.
PLACE: Director's Conference Room, Room 1801, The Capitol, Tallahassee,
Florida.
THE PERSON TO BE CONTACTED REGARDING THE PROPOSED RULE
DEVELOPMENT IS: Paul Craft, Division of Elections, (850) 921-4110.
THE PRELIMINARY TEXT OF THE PROPOSED RULE DEVELOPMENT IS
NOT
AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME.
By way of an early virtual Christmas gift for all the members of the CDD
mailing list, I tried here to make them an offer they couldn't refuse.
Message
Number 15 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Date:
Dec 02 1998 20:44:42 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Please Order Your Absolutely Free Copy of The Virtual Voting Book, Volume1:
Early Documents
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
I've put most of what I've written in the last few years about digital
democracy together with most of what's been written about me and the
Campaign into a virtual book called: The Virtual Voting Book, Volume 1:
Early Documents.
In its Works 4.0 WP version, it's 147 pages long and contains 42,712 words
in six chapters.
It can't do anybody any good if no one reads it, so I want to offer each
member of this list a free copy of this virtual book, in the format of his
or her choice, including (and limited to):
HTML
RTF
Text
Word 6.0
Word 97
Works 4.0 WP
WordPerfect 5.0
WordPerfect 5.x for Windows
WordPerfect 5.x
5.0 Mac.mcw
All you need to do to get your free copy is send me an e-mail at
<transmedia@pacificnet.net>, specifying the format you'd like, and I'll
send it right out. If you have friends or colleagues you think might like
a copy (it's just right for a virtual Christmas gift, and you can't beat
the price) and who you think might prefer a different format, just mention
that and I'll send you one in their preferred format, too.
Even with this speed and ease of delivery, digital democracy is evolving
so fast that unless you get and read The Virtual Voting Book before the
end of the year, you may not be able to find time to read it later or put
its insights and historical principles to work before you are deluged with
additional materials on this subject from all over, including The Virtual
Voting Book, Volume 2, which will certainly include this posting as part
of it.
So order today.
Thanks,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Stan Smith, from the Palo Alto Cable Co-op, which I had co-founded with him in the early 1980s to provide a community-controlled cable system to the Greater Palo Alto and Stanford Service Area, e-mailed me around 9 pm on December 3, 1998, and told me about Worldwide Election System's announcement of a viable Internet voting system. I sent the president of WES an e-mail suggesting we talk about cooperating and I sent this note out to the CDD mailing list.
Message
Number 16 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Date:
Dec 04 1998 01:25:44 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Possibly the World's First Viable Internet Voting System
To Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
Worldwide Election Systems, Inc., says it has the world's first viable
Internet voting system.
You can
check this out at:
http://www.worldwideelection.com/index.htm
The Los Angeles Times ran a story about the suppression of
cyberdissidents in China on December 5, 1998, so I wrote this essay to convey
some ideas about electronic democracy in China that I'd been carrying around
for years.
Message
Number 17 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Dec 05 1998 17:35:13 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Cyberdissidence in China
Dear Internet Users and Netizens,
One of the more fanciful suggestions I've been making over the last few
years is this:
That digital democracy, indeed
democracy at all, could be
world's most-populous country, China, by allowing its citizens to use the
Internet to vote in free elections.
Obstacles to implementing this suggestion have included the fact that
China does not have a democratic system of governance and that not that
many Chinese have access to the Internet.
It's been my contention, though, that the Chinese government, eager to
modernize its economy, would need to deploy the Internet throughout the
country in order to do so. As it would be doing this, it would be
simultaneously laying the groundwork for digital democracy, to be
implemented through the very infrastructure it was building in hopes of
advancing its economy without undermining the power and authority of the
ruling Communist Party.
In an ironic deja vu of the original theoretical basis of communist power
as analyzed by Karl Marx, in which capitalism, in order to expand to the
greatest extent possible, creates an economic and social infrastructure
that contains the seeds of its own repudiation and replacement
(communism), so Chinese communism, in order to build itself up by
modernizing its economic and financial infrastructure through the
deployment of the Internet, would similarly sow the seeds of its own
repudiation and replacement (digital democracy).
One stage beyond "dialectical materialism," we can call this process
"dialectical virtualism," or "the virtual dialectic." Nor, of course,
would digital democracy be immune to this process; it will become the
starting point (thesis) for yet another organically-generated response
(antithesis), creating a new synthesis (hard to say now what it will be).
More
practically,
assigning Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) to those over 18 who want to
vote, setting up servers with Internet voting programs here in the US or
in other democratic countries, carefully publicizing the elections,
conducting them, tabulating the returns, and using the Internet and other
media to publicize the results.
Thus, perhaps with some turmoil, would "Western-style" (digital)
democracy come to hundreds of millions of people now without it.
Additionally, these e-voters would now be more prepared to become global
e-consumers, something that should be of interest to every entrepreneur
and every company planning an e-commerce strategy for the next millennium.
Furthermore, no Western democracy would be able to argue against letting
its own people have at least as much electronic political freedom as the
people of China would now enjoy, so the coming of digital democracy to
China would also signal the arrival of digital democracy in all of the
already-democratic countries.
Those
who believe that the spread of democracy
international peace in its wake would be able to test this theory. And we
would have a
model for
not-yet-democratic countries.
And those politicians planning to seek popularly-elected world-wide
official positions would certainly know that they'd need to learn Chinese,
or hire someone who knows it already for their staff, if they want to be
viable candidates for winning e-elections in global balloting in the
coming years. Winning the crucial Chinese vote will be even more
important in world democratic politics than winning in California is today
in US politics.
The occasion for this essay was the following article, which appeared in
the Saturday, December 5, 1998, edition of The Los Angeles Times:
'Cyberdissident' in China on Trial for Subversion
By MAGGIE FARLEY
Times Staff Writer
SHANGHAI--In an attempt to extend political control into cyberspace,
Chinese authorities put a young software entrepreneur on trial here Friday
on charges that he tried to undermine the state through the Internet, the
first trial of a "cyberdissident" in China.
Lin Hai, 30, is accused of inciting subversion by providing 30,000
Chinese e-mail addresses to "hostile foreign organization," a charge that
could
Lin, who ran an Internet job search and marketing business in Shanghai,
allegedly gave the addresses to the Washington-based VIP Reference, an
Internet dissident magazine that e-mails pro-democracy essays and articles
to hundreds of thousands of Internet users in China.
The four-hour trial was held behind closed doors at Shanghai's No. 1
Intermediate People's Court, but a verdict may not be reached until next
week, Lin's lawyer said after the trial.
"I'm afraid it doesn't look good for Lin Hai," the lawyer Wang Wen-jiang
told the Associated Press by telephone Friday evening. "I think he's
going to be found guilty."
Lin Hai's wife, Xu Hong, whom security officials apparently prevented
from appearing at the courthouse, has been campaigning to clear her
husband's name since he was arrested in May.
She maintains that exchanging e-mall addresses, which are public
information like telephone numbers, was part of his Internet business and
that he was not the one who sent the material the government deemed
subversive.
"If someone is killed with a knife, should you arrest the knife-maker or
the murderer?" she wrote in a letter of appeal to top authorities.
The case is being monitored carefully not only by international human
rights groups and organization that promote Internet freedom but also by
business people who hope to do e-commerce with one of the world's
fastest-growing computer communities.
There are an estimated 1.2 million Internet accounts registered in China,
many with multiple users, and authorities expect the number to reach 5
million by 2000.
Lin's case is an important warning to those using the Internet to spread
information that would otherwise be censored on the mainland.
China's security apparatus is struggling to control the Internet.
Special monitors survey electronic traffic, and the government has erected
filters and "firewalls" to block sites deemed pornographic or subversive,
including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the BBC.
However, the blocks are not enough to keep groups such as VIP Reference
from zipping their material into the country. The electronic magazine,
known in Chinese as Da Cankao, was started by a handful of Chinese
students in the United States last year.
They evade the firewalls by e-mailing their compilations of pro-democracy
essays and articles directly to about 250,000 people inside China. The
Internet address--http://www.come.to/dck--changes frequently to sidestep
filters, and the magazine is sent from a different e-mail address every
day.
"China apparently considers us 'counterrevolutionary,' but we are not
dissidents," said one of the founders, Feng Donghai, a software engineer
in New York. "We are not a political party. We are only interested in
freedom of speech. I never meant to be a dissident, but I am forced to be
a dissident by China."
Feng said the magazine's publishers use a "spam strategy," sending the
magazine to random addresses across China--even to top government
officials--so no one can be accused of intentionally subscribing. He
added that they trade and receive mass e-mail lists from many different
sources; they did not know Lin, and Lin did not necessarily know what his
lists would be used for, he said.
Other Internet magazines are written in China, then sent overseas to be
e-mailed back into the country. One is Tunnel
(http://www.geociteis.com/Silicon Valley/Bay/5598), which relishes its
role as a
The mainland editors of another political newsletter, Public Opinion,
have gone underground since the government heightened a crackdown on
dissent. This week, 10 members of China's first opposition party were
arrested or detained on the same charges as Lin Hai: inciting subversion
of the state.
VIP Reference's Feng said he believes that the government is not wrong to
be afraid.
"If the students had e-mail [during the Tiananmen Square protests] in
1989, student leaders in different cities could have been united. The
news of the massacre could have spread overnight; the authorities couldn't
block the news. It could have been a very different situation," he said.
"Right now, the Internet is becoming more and more important for the
Chinese democracy movement. We never imagined the power."
-30-
The Shah had the Ayatollah Khomeini's cassette recorders; Deng Xiao Ping
had the students' fax machines, and, thanks to the political amendment to
Moore's Law stating that chip-based political power doubles every 18
months, President Jiang Zemin now has these dissidents' Web servers. May
he profit from the examples of his predecessors.
And if we do nothing now that they've come for Lin Hai, what will we be
able to credibly say when they come for us?
Regards,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for
Digital Democracy
Well, I mistyped the URL for Tunnel magazine so I sent out a correction.
Message
Number 18 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Date:
Dec 05 1998 18:03:13 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Corrected Tunnel URL
Dear Internet Users and Netizens,
The correct URL for Tunnel magazine is:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/5598/
Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Florida wanted feedback to help it formulate
regulations to govern the provision of Internet-connectivity for voters voting
in public polling places (see Message 14 for details). I drafted a set of proposed requirements and
sent it to the CDD membership for their consideration and comments.
Message
Number 19 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Dec 09 1998 16:04:04 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Feedback on Proposed Guidelines for Electronic Voting in Florida
Dear Members of the CDD Mailing List,
As you know if you've read Message 14 in the CDD Archives ("Florida Begins
Setting Standards for Internet-based Voting"), Florida is in the process
of formulating standards to be adhered to by vendors who want to provide
Internet- and intranet-based voting systems to be used in local polling
places in Florida elections.
While the systems to be regulated by these new rules will NOT be ones that
allow voters to vote from their homes, offices, cars, or mobile computers,
Florida's efforts to establish a framework for the use of TCP/IP-based
networks in elections represents a significant step forward, and one that
can logically evolve into a more extensive Internet-based system that
allows user/voters to vote directly through the Internet from wherever
they may be and during whatever time period is established for their
exercise of a digital franchise.
I've prepared a list of 8 criteria that I plan to submit to the Secretary
of State's Office in Florida as the position of CDD regarding their
formulation of regulations to govern Internet voting in the form they now
envision it, as a means of collecting ballots at public polling stations.
I'm mailing it out to all of you first, so you can give me any feedback
you might have about this list. Please feel free to send me comments
concerning the completeness of this list, the appropriateness of the items
I've chosen to include on it, and any modifications that you'd like to see
made to this selection of requirements before I submit it to the
authorities in Florida.
I'm submitting this material for your comment not just because I want to
get your views so I can send in the best possible set of recommendations,
but because I want to initiate a process of discussion and consultation
which I hope will eventually evolve, through this and other, more
technically-advanced platforms, into an on-going systems for the
development and consideration of policy positions on a range of issues of
interest to us as we work together to make electronic democracy a reality
and not just a theory.
Here is what I plan to submit:
The Campaign for Digital Democracy is pleased to submit this list as part
of its efforts to establish sound principles and workable guidelines for
the creation of electronic voting systems for use in Florida and elsewhere.
The CDD believes that any Internet- or intranet-based voting system needs
to be:
1. secure as to the identification and authentication of the voter, as
well as the privacy, secrecy, and integrity of the voter's ballot, which
includes its anonymity
2. ease-of-use for every voter
3. accessible to every voter who wants to use it
4. upgradeable as technology improves
5. integrated with the existing reporting and auditing systems
6. capable of assuring the non-repudiation of the voting transaction
7. useable by mobility- and visually-challenged voters
8. auditable by the Information Risk Management Practice of any major
accounting firm
Respectfully submitted by:
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Los Angeles, California
Please send your comments on these proposed guidelines to me at:
transmedia@pacificnet.net
If possible, please return your comments to me by 12:00 pm, Pacific
Standard Time, on Friday, December 11th, so I can incorporate them into
the final draft that I will send out to Florida before the close of
business there that day.
Thanks very much for helping with this.
Sincerely,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Dr. Michael Macpherson at Integral Studies in Berlin told
Dinu C. Gherman at LHS International in Zurich about what I was doing in New
Zealand and he (Gherman) e-mailed me to suggest I check out his site, which is
using the Net to mobilize Euro-Netizens to work for more citizen input in the
upcoming selection of the President of the European Commission. It's a good idea for and a good execution of
a site, and I wanted to alert CDD members to it.
Message
Number 20 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing List
Date:
Dec 10 1998 17:27:22 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Electronic Euro-elections
Dear Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
There's a website at http://www.prom.org/vpc that is trying to do for
Europe what CDD and Polemic Associates are trying to do for New Zealand,
namely, run a mock electronic election designed to explore the technical
and political ramifications of digital voting.
Please take a look.
Sincerely,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Bob Stiens, a political consultant, e-mailed me a link
to a story on CNET about the electronic voting standards rule-making process in
Florida. I read the piece, then sent the
reporter who wrote it a copy of the letter I'd sent to Paul Craft at the
Secretary of State's Office there in Tallahassee. Then I sent a link to the story and a copy of
my submission to Florida to everyone (now 72 people) on the CDD mailing list.
Message
Number 21 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Dear Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
Here's the URL for an article that ran on CNET on Friday, December 11,
1998:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,29830,00.html
It's about Florida's cutting-edge work in setting standards for
TCP/IP-Internet-protocol-based voting.
The day before this article appeared, I sent the e-mail below to Paul
Craft, who's heading up Florida's effort on this:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
transmedia@pacificnet.net
Los Angeles, CA
December 10, 1998
Paul W. Craft, CPA, CISA
Computer Audit Analyst
Florida Department of State
Division of Elections
Voting System Section
401 S. Monroe Street, Room 203C
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0250
Dear Paul,
The Campaign for Digital Democracy is pleased to submit this list
as part of its efforts to establish sound principles and workable
guidelines for the creation of electronic voting systems for use in
Florida and elsewhere.
The CDD believes that any Internet- or intranet-based voting
system needs to be:
1. secure as to the identification and authentication of the
voter, as well as the privacy, secrecy, and integrity of the voter's
ballot, including its anonymity
2. easy to use by every voter
3. accessible to every voter who wants to use it
4. upgradeable as technology improves
5. integrated with the existing reporting and auditing systems
6. capable of assuring the non-repudiation of voter/government
transactions
7. useable by mobility- and visually-challenged voters
8. auditable by the Information Risk Management Practice of a
major accounting firm
I look forward to working with you to see that the best possible set of
standards for electronic voting within a TCP/IP framework are developed
and implemented for the benefit of the relevant state agencies and the
voters of the State of Florida.
Respectfully submitted by:
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Los
Angeles, California
Just a progress report from Paul Craft in Florida, along with a list of
addressees showing who was interested at this point (December 17, 1998) in
getting into the electronic voting market.
Message
Number 22 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Date:
Dec 17 1998 16:20:54 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Progress in Florida 1
Dear Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
Paul Craft in the Florida Department of State, Division of Elections, has
sent me an update on the TCP/IP Voting Standards Rule Development Process
that I wanted to pass on to you.
As you'll notice if you look over the list of addressees, major players in
the elections business are playing close attention to the formulation of
this Rule. Fortunately, through the Internet, so can we.
Regards,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Rule Development Workshop on Internet/Intranet Voting Systems
Standards
Date:
Thu, 17 Dec 1998 15:36:22 -0500
From:
"Paul W. Craft" <pcraft@mail.dos.state.fl.us>
Organization:
Florida Department of State, Division of Elections
To:
berns@prologic-inc.com, bill@ocfelections.com,
lonn@ocfelections.com, jerry@ocfelections.com,
phollarn@co.okaloosa.fl.us, bwilliams@ksumail.kennesaw.edu,
daveh@essvote.com, jsgroh@essvote.com, smbolton@essvote.com,
wfwelsh@essvote.com,
herbellen@aol.com, herbert.fensury@canada.cdev.com,
sandra.falconi@canada.cdev.com,
pricej@nichols.com, jdearman@hnt.wylelabs.com,
southws@nichols.com, khazlett@teleport.com,
pnolte@ballots.com, lorrie@research.att.com,
transmedia@pacificnet.net, padlerberg@soundcode.com,
tony_sirvello@co.harris.tx.us, ponder@mail.irm.state.fl.us,
marc.Blanchet@viagenie.qc.ca, roysalt@aol.com,
culturex@vcn.bc.ca, carl@chage.com, tomas.ohlin@telo.se,
biophilos@flinet.com, kaye@ix.netcom.com,
kriegsherr@juno.com, judiemul@kc-inc.net,
aurken@choicelogic.com, s
jcrozier@mail.dos.state.fl.us, ebaxter@mail.dos.state.fl.us,
bmitchell@mail.dos.state.fl.us,
mlindsey@mail.dos.state.fl.us, pcraft@mail.dos.state.fl.us
To: Interested Parties
First Item -
I have finally found time to assemble an e-mail mailing list for
everyone interested in our initiative to set standards for internet and
intranet voting systems. You are receiving this message because you have
either corresponded with me on this topic or because I have reason to
believe that you are interested.
This list is NOT interactive and I plan to strictly limit its use to
notifying you of meetings, deadlines and significant events as we go
through the rule development and promulgation process.
If you are not interested in this matter, please accept my apology for
the intrusion. If you will notify me by e-mail I will remove you from
the list.
Second Item -
We have changed the location of the December 29, 1998 rule development
workshop to accommodate a larger audience. The time, date and new
location are as follows:
Time and date: 9:30 a.m., December 29, 1998.
Location: Room 171, the Betty Easley Conference Center 4075 Esplanade
Way, Tallahassee, Florida.
Map and directions to the meeting site have been posted on our website
at:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/votemeth/inetvss/map.jpg
This notice of location change will appear in the Florida Administrative
Weekly (the Weekly) on December 18, 1998. When the proposed rule is
finally drafted its full text will be published in the Weekly. The Weekly
is published on-line on our web-site. See:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/faw/issues.htm
Third Item -
For those of you planning to attend the Rule Development Workshop who
want more information on the rulemaking process in Florida, we publish a
Rule Making Handbook which can be found on our website at:
ftp://election.dos.state.fl.us/ftp/rulemake/rmhndbk.pdf
Fourth Item -
Those of you with bulletin boards and e-mail lists may, if you wish,
feel free to redistribute this message to your members. However, please
do not add me to your mailing lists. Although I have requested input from
the public on the proposed rule, our internet e-mail server
resources are limited and heavily used so it is important that I limit
my e-mail traffic to actual correspondence addressed to me from
individuals.
As always, if you have any questions about this or need assistance while
making your plans to attend the meeting please feel free to call, e-mail,
or write.
Sincerely,
Paul W. Craft, CPA, CISA
Computer Audit Analyst
Florida Department of State
Division of Elections
Voting System Section
401 S. Monroe Street, Room 203C
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0250
Phone (850) 921-4110
Fax (850) 488-6174
E-mail pcraft@mail.dos.state.fl.us
Website http://election.dos.state.fl.us
This was my final message of a busy 1998 and my exhortation for a busier
1999.
Message
Number 23 for
Campaign
for Digital Democracy
Mailing
List
Date:
Dec 31 1998 17:06:18 EST
From:
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Subject:
Happy New Year!
Dear Members of the Campaign for Digital Democracy Mailing List,
I just wanted to thank all of you for your interest and support during
1998 and wish you a truly great 1999, professionally and personally.
Let's make 1999 the Year of Electronic Voting!
Regards,
Marc Strassman
Executive Director
Campaign for Digital Democracy
Brief
Afterward
Brief Afterward
As you can see, these documents reflect an effort that falls into several distinct phases. First, there was the Theoretical Period, in which I thought through and wrote out the principles of electronic voting. This was followed by the failure of the Virtual Voting Rights Initiative, which led, via media coverage, directly to the introduction, passage, and vetoing of AB44.
Then came the media period, roughly Fe
Meanwhile, the recent election showcased the Internet as
never before, and most everyone who was asked said they'd like to use it to
vote on the next time around. It's
possible, but not certain, that we will.
As always, it's up to us. It's up
to us to demand our right to decide our futures for ourselves. This time, the issue is using the
Internet. Next time, it will be
something else. But if we can win the
right to use the Internet to select our leaders and formulate the policies that
will govern us, then the chances will be a lot
Marc Strassman
January 21, 1999