Digital Democracy

With Americans able to conduct bank transactions, order airline tickets and shop for almost anything online, it might seem logical to many to cast votes from a personal computer instead of going to the polls.\nOnline elections have already been administered, with the Arizona Democratic Party conducting the first legally binding online vote for the presidential primary in March. Chair Mark Fleisher said it was conducted with minimal problems.\nBut along with arguments that voting online poses serious security problems, the idea that it discriminates among voters has been also been a key point, said Deborah Phillips, chairman of the Voting Integrity Project, a nonprofit organization that deals with elections and voting rights.\nPhillips said because those with access to the Internet are commonly white, it unfairly discriminates against minority citizens without the same access to the Internet. \nThe project and two members of the minority community filed suit in January against the Arizona Democratic Party. They sought an injunction to stop the vote, but a U.S. District Court judge allowed the party to move forward. \nThe second portion of the suit claims the online voting conducted in Arizona violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which in part prohibits methods used to prevent minorities from voting. The case is set to be heard in April, despite the outcome of the primary not being affected.\nPhillips said online voting rivals practices such as literacy tests, posing the question of whether the effect of this voting method is just as serious. \n"We think it potentially it could be, and that's why we brought the lawsuit," Phillips said.\nBut Fleisher said the results from the primary show minority voter turnout increased tremendously. In a press release issued by Election.com, which joined the Arizona Democratic Party to run the online vote, numbers from the 1992 and 1996 primaries were compared with those from the results in March. In two districts in Maricopa County, which the release said has a high Hispanic population, the turnout jumped by 828 and 1,011 percent. \nHe also said alternative methods were offered, including mail-in ballots, paper ballots and polling place online voting -- where computers are available at the polling sites.\nPhillips said actual numbers have to be examined to truly determine the ethnicity of each voter.\nFleisher said he had talked with people in areas with a high minority population and said they believed the Internet vote "empowered their communities."\nHe also said overall voter turnout increased. \n"More people voted online by 11 the first night than we had vote in the last election," he said.\nBut despite disagreement about the implications of Internet voting, both sides believe online voting might eventually become customary.\nPhillips said the "digital divide" between demographic groups can be eliminated -- if online voting occurs at poll sites, instead of through remote voting, or voting from a distant terminal like in a home or office. \n"That is doable and we can come up with a set of guidelines," she said. \nFleisher said he felt the online vote made history.\n"I think almost all elections will be online," he said.