September 2004  Email this  Print this
 License or reprint this article
INTERVIEW
Another Election Cliffhanger?
by Melynda Dovel Wilcox Michael Alvarez is co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project and co-author of Point, Click and Vote, a book on the future of Internet balloting. How will voting in this year's election differ from 2000? The biggest change actually has nothing to do with technology. Instead, we'll see dramatically heightened scrutiny over all aspects of the election process from many directions -- the media, academia, public-interest groups and government.
Will we see any voting reforms? One of the most important is provisional balloting. All states are now required to have a separate procedure for people who show up to vote but whose names aren't on the rolls. Those people will be allowed to vote, but their votes won't be counted until their registration status can be verified, which will be after Election Day. In the 2000 election, about 1.5 million people weren't allowed to vote because of registration problems.
Will more people be voting electronically? Yes, about 31% of registered voters, compared with 13% in 2000. But the Caltech/MIT group was surprised to find that the problems in the 2000 election were much broader and more pernicious than could be solved just by adding electronic voting machines. Many of the problems have to do with human error.
Are you worried about a replay of the 2000 cliffhanger? I'm quite concerned. Not only because it's likely to be a close election, but also because it will be very competitive in a number of states that either have not made strong reform efforts or have gone in the opposite direction and instituted many reforms that could result in unexpected glitches.
How soon will we see widespread Internet voting? It could happen within a decade. Internet voting would be both more accessible and more accurate because you could design it so that it's difficult for voters to make mistakes. | 
MAGAZINE
