E-voting could use ATM-like kiosks, as shown in this artist's concept.

Wow! Can you believe all of the confusion and controversy surrounding this year's U.S. presidential election? Few elections have ever had this many twists and turns. In most presidential elections, our next president is usually decided before we go to bed on election night. Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush must have spent many restless nights since last week's election, thinking about the few hundreds of votes that separate the two men in Florida -- votes which will decide the presidency, as Florida claims 25 Electoral College votes.

The 2000 election will always be remembered for the confusion that developed on election night and the days following. Early on election night, TV networks announced that Gore had won Florida, but then retracted that announcement. Then Florida was awarded to Bush, only for it to be announced later that the state was too close to call. Thousands of ballots were tossed out in South Florida because some voters couldn't decipher the so-called "butterfly" ballot. Disputes over just a few hundred votes are keeping one of these men from claiming the White House, and legal suits and recounts are under way to decide who our next president will be. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the entire situation is that, in what is arguably the most technologically advanced country in the world, Americans are still voting with paper ballots. Little progress has been made since the American forefathers dropped beans in a jar to cast their votes.

We have the technology today to perform computerized elections. In fact, some companies, universities and unions already use e-voting to elect their officials. In this edition of How Stuff Will Work, you'll learn about how the next time Americans vote for the U.S. president, it might be at the breakfast table, checking off an online ballot on a PC or personal digital assistant.

Point and Click Voting

Photo courtesy Sequoia Pacific Voting Equipment Some voters are already trying out touch-screen voting computers like this one.

Americans live in a country that is heavily dependent on millions of computers. Obviously, you are aware of the impact of computers, since you are reading this over the Internet, but computers do more than just connect us to the World Wide Web. Almost everyone uses an ATM for a good portion of their bank transactions. Computers installed on gas pumps allow us to pay at the pump. We rely on computers to help us perform many everyday tasks, but there are still things we don't trust computers to do. And one of those tasks is voting. As the 2000 election plays out, many political pundits and techies argue that electronic voting, or e-voting, will prevent a lot of the problems that have put the presidential election on hold. The advantages of e-voting include:

• Streamlining the voting process.
• Preventing ballot errors and confusion.
• Increasing national voter turnout.

In the punch card system, if you feed the same 100 ballots through the counting machine seven times, you get seven different vote counts. These inaccuracies are a problem when you are counting millions of ballots, and thousands or hundreds of votes can decide the election outcome. There are two e-voting technologies available that could streamline this process, and make counting ballots as easy as hitting a key on a computer keyboard.

In Brazil and the Netherlands, many voters already use an ATM-like machine to cast their vote. Using these machines, voters gather at their traditional voting precinct and cast their ballots in a kiosk, just like the one they have always used. This kiosk retains the privacy that voters want. Voters carry in a cartridge and place it in the e-voting computer, which displays the candidates on a touch-screen, liquid-crystal display. Unlike paper ballots, these machines display information about each candidate aside from their party affiliation, and might even display the candidate's photo so that there is less confusion over identity. A voter makes their choice for president by touching the screen. Once the voter makes a selection, a new list of candidates, for the next office on the ballot, appears on the screen. If a voter makes a mistake, such as selecting two candidates for the same office, the computer points out this error and allows the voter to correct it. Once the voter has completed the ballot, the computer allows the voter to review his or her choices before returning the cartridge to an election official.

While it's been more than a week since polls closed on the 2000 U.S. election, and we are still awaiting the final outcomes in many states, including Florida, Oregon and New Mexico, paperless ballots can be counted instantly when polls close. There is no waiting for overseas or absentee ballots, because they can be counted along with the other e-ballots. Everything is electronic, so in addition to the benefit of timeliness, there is also less concern over human error in the counting process.

Electronic polling places are considered to be a stepping stone toward Internet voting, which would allow people to vote from their home or work computer -- or any computer with Internet access. Voters could simply point and click on the candidate they support. This type of voting has the potential to significantly increase voter turnout. In 1998, only 44.9 percent of Americans of voting age took the time to vote. Many non-voters say that the inconvenience of registering or voting is the main reason they did not cast a ballot. With e-voting, you might eventually be able to register online. Online voting eliminates the lines at polling places, and gives us the ultimate anonymous vote. If no one actually sees you vote, there is far less chance that they can know for whom you voted.

Testing E-Voting Technology
Several states were taking a close look at e-voting even before election day 2000 -- but the aftermath of this year's presidential election could sway them toward implementing systems in time for the 2004 vote. You may be one of the few voters who took part in one of the various pilot e-voting programs around the country. The success or failure of these test programs will play a pivotal role in determining the future of e-voting.

Approximately 350 military personnel stationed overseas, or in states far from their home polling precincts, are the first Americans to vote via the Internet. This voting program was run by the U.S. Department of Defense's Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), and is expected to be a viable replacement for absentee or mail-in votes. These military personnel were given a certificate on a floppy disk, which was inserted in a computer. That information was paired with a similar certificate at their home county, allowing the personnel to log onto the system and vote.

This past election day, Riverside County, Calif., conducted the first paperless voting, and it went off with few hitches. Voters used the touch-screen, ATM-like voting machines at 715 polling locations. The e-voting machines are secure, independent computers that cost about $18,000 each. Voters used a cartridge to record their votes, which were then read by a computer. Proponents of electronic voting say that if the computers in Riverside had been used in Florida, a recount would have been instantaneous, if it were needed at all.

Voters in San Diego and Sacramento counties in California, and in Maricopa County in Arizona had the opportunity to cast ballots in an online voting trial on election day. In this so-called "shadow vote," voters first voted using traditional methods, and then were given the choice to vote again on a computer. The second vote was not counted toward the election, but the online votes will be studied to see if this method has potential for future elections. Tabulation of the hundreds of online shadow votes took only a a few seconds, while tabulation of traditional votes takes hours or days.

With problems continuing to plague the Florida ballot count, it's likely that officials will give these pilot electronic voting programs some serious consideration. However, e-voting must overcome several obstacles before it becomes widely accepted for use in national elections. In the next section, we will look at some of the legal and technological challenges facing the implementation of e-voting.

Bridging the Digital Divide
Electronic voting is the first new election technology to be introduced in years. Of course, this change doesn't come without criticism. Traditionally, people are resistant to change, even if it offers an opportunity to simplifying their lives. And to be fair, e-voting does have its drawbacks. Here are just a few:

• Computers will disenfranchise the computer illiterate, including the elderly, the poor and minorities.
• It will be very difficult to verify voters' identities.
• Computers are susceptible to attacks by computer viruses and hackers.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 poses the biggest legal barrier to e-voting. This act called for an end to discrimination against minorities in the election process, and prohibits some states from making changes to voting procedures without federal approval. The courts could declare computer-based or Internet voting a violation of this act.

Another potential problem facing electronic or online voting will be verifying the actual identity of the person casting the ballot. Giving a 10-digit PIN number to voters is one method of deterring voter fraud; fingerprint, iris and retinal scanners could also verify that you are who you say you are when you vote. This would be a significant improvement over the identification process used at polling places now. On election day this year, all that most of us had to do to verify our identities was recite our address. We didn't have to show any form of identification or proof of who we are.

Many people worry that voting on a computer network may make their votes vulnerable to attacks by hackers. Security measures developed to protect other areas of the Internet, including shopping, have not been able to completely lock out malicious attacks. You've probably heard of cases in which someone's credit card number was stolen online, costing the credit card holder hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. So how can we be sure that our votes are secure? Security may be the weak link of online voting. Before e-voting becomes commonplace, developers will need to address the prospect of hackers jamming an e-voting computer system and preventing selected groups of voters from casting ballots.

E-voting has its share of flaws, but it might draw more interest following the problems that have plagued this year's election. In a country that relies so much on technology, we might finally see that technology easing the political process in the next presidential election. Who knows? In November 2004, you could wake up on election day and cast your ballot at a virtual polling booth in the privacy of your own home.