FW: School District Plans First Remote Internet Voting Test

["John Teeter" <johnt@fsr.com>]

nice way to see if the cost of voting can be curbed (if it works).

johnt

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From: owner-newsbytes-netwatch@iproduction.com
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Sent: Monday, April 05, 1999 5:25 AM
To: newsbytes-netwatch@iproduction.com;
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Subject: School District Plans First Remote Internet Voting Test


SHELTON, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1999 APR 5 (NB) -- By Laura Randall,
Newsbytes. As state-level efforts to study the feasibility of Internet
voting
increase, one school district in Washington State plans a first-ever test
of
remote Internet voting in the public sector at the end of the month.

Voters in the Pioneer School District in Mason County will be able to
cast their ballots from home or work by logging onto
htttp://www.votehere.net between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on April 27. The
ballot questions are still being developed, but voters will likely be
asked to answer two questions about school district policy and  Internet
voting, according to Mason County School District superintendent Dick
Sirokoman.

County officials hope to gauge voter response to the electronic voting
system. Also participating in the vote will be students from area high
schools. "We’re especially interested in comparing the response of
those approaching voting age with long-time voters," Mason County
Auditor Al Brotche said in a statement.

The test vote comes at a time when state legislatures in Washington
and Minnesota are considering bills that would require election officials
to study the possibility of Internet voting. In February, California
convened a task force to examine issues involved with casting ballots
via the Internet.

Chief among critics' concerns about online voting are voter privacy, the
perception that only people with high incomes will be able to vote from
home and the inability of old-fashioned voting systems to integrate with
Internet technology.

Advocates of Internet voting, however, maintain that the convenience
of voting from home will motivate more people to vote.

The technology for the Mason County vote will be provided by Soundcode,
a Kirkland, Wash.-based software company that has developed a secure
online voting system called VoteHere.net.

Mason County voters won’t be restricted to casting their ballots online,
as they will also have the option of casting their votes at a polling site.

The cost of online voting comes to about $8 per vote, according to Don
Carter, senior vice president at Soundcode. The company is not
charging Pioneer School District to conduct the online voting test.

Soundcode plans two more test votes over the next two months in the
Washington counties of Cowlitz and Lewis. One will ask voters their
preferred method of voting in future elections. The other involves a
high-school student government election.

Possible future sites for online voting tests include caucus primaries,
university elections, and pre-polling of constituents on bond issues,
Carter told Newsbytes.

Reported by Newsbytes News Network, http://www.newsbytes.com

12:25  CST

(19990405/Press Contact: Don Carter, SoundCode, 425-827-6146
/WIRES ONLINE/)
 From www.newsbytes.com