Critics claim e-voting technology, while advancing rapidly, cannot yet guarantee that an election would remain invulnerable to hackers or other digital plagues. Were hackers to gain access to election data, they potentially could manipulate the information or invalidate it by wreaking havoc on the process. Companies that produce the software for online voting are insisting that they already can provide tamper-proof elections. It probably won't need to go that far. USA Today columnist Kevin Maney said recently that he had a harder time getting into Price Club than getting his vote counted in a recent election.
Online shopping has better security than a polling booth.
Therefore there must be a way to make virtual voting work. Despite the excitement surrounding online voting, the risk of hacker attacks, privacy breaches, and fraud is real. In the meantime, some states are moving forward aggressively with Internet voting. Alaska, for example, has set up systems for state voting that would allow 3,500 Alaskans in remote northern areas to vote online from designated locations. The White House has commissioned the National Science Foundation to conduct a yearlong study about the issues surrounding Internet voting.