Cybersense-Thumbs Down on E-Voting Until Minorities Go Online

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The principle of “one man, one vote” is as deeply ingrained in our democratic process as soft money, sex scandals and negative ads.

But until that same principle extends to computer ownership, we shouldn’t let people cast those votes on the Internet.

Most Net users are understandably enthused about the prospect of filling out ballots online. No more waiting in line at the Elks lodge behind slowpokes who insist on actually reading all those ballot propositions.

On Election Day, we’ll just point and click for the best candidate while firing off an e-mail to his opponent.

The Arizona Democratic Party offered online ballots in its presidential primary last month, making it the first binding election in the nation to include Internet voting. The event attracted a record turnout even though Vice President Al Gore was unopposed by the time polls closed March 11.

Party leaders are crowing about their success, and election officials in Florida and Washington are thinking about following suit.

Indeed, the Gartner Group consulting firm predicts voters in every state will be casting ballots online by 2004.

Don’t bet on it.

The results of Arizona’s experiment are actually cloudier than the Dems want to admit. A closer look at the turnout reveals significant problems that will likely hold up online elections until Net access is as widespread as political apathy.

Digital divide

The obvious problem with Internet voting is that most eligible voters don’t have Net-connected computers at home. Those who do are more likely to be white, according to government surveys that reveal a so-called digital divide between Anglos and minorities.

That’s why Arizona Democrats also offered traditional polling places and referred voters to public libraries where they could cast ballots online. But that wasn’t enough to avoid a lawsuit accusing the party of disenfranchising minorities by giving mostly white Net users an easier way to vote.

The Voting Integrity Project, a Virginia-based public interest group, claimed the election violates the federal Voting Rights Act. That law prevents electoral changes that dilute minority votes.

Party leaders responded by offering absentee voting, an expensive process that involved snail-mailing postage-paid ballots to every potential voter. This way, they reasoned, even those without computers could vote from home.

That got the election past a federal judge, but only temporarily. The judge said he’d inspect the results afterward to see how minorities fared in the process.

Well, the results are in, and it doesn’t take Thurgood Marshall or even Judge Wapner to see what the digital divide plaintiffs warned about. Voters in minority-dominated districts were much less likely to vote online than those in heavily Anglo areas.

Many minority-dominated districts accounted for roughly the same share of the total vote as they did in years past, which suggests the process didn’t diminish their strength. But that fortunate result was almost entirely reliant on absentee ballots, which were the most popular way to vote in minority neighborhoods.

High-tech bauble?

Turnout also was helped by a costly ad campaign by Election.com, which charged Arizona Democrats less than $20,000 for the chance to run their primary.

The company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure voters knew the addresses of polling places and public access computers. It also paid for the absentee ballots and kept a technical support staff working around the clock to handle voters’ problems.

That kind of investment was intended to make sure this first online election would be a success. The question, though, is whether subsequent elections can function without it.

Online voting appeals to state officials because it promises to be cheaper and faster than other methods. But Arizona’s experience and the language of the Voting Rights Act suggest Internet balloting can only be used in combination with other, more expensive vote-at-home methods.

That transforms it from a money saver to an expensive high-tech bauble.

In states with stricter voting laws than Arizona where anyone can vote absentee for any reason Internet voting might not even be possible until minorities own computers in numbers equal to Anglos. By the time that happens, history teachers will be telling kids that old President Gore really did invent the Internet.

Even if the judge lets Arizona’s vote stand, election officials in other states should think carefully before committing themselves to collecting votes online. While the cachet and convenience of online balloting are tempting, they don’t come cheap. And minority voters may end up footing the bill.

To contact Joe Salkowski, e-mail him at [email protected] or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, Ill., 60611.

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