If the test goes well, the FVAP will consider eventually making online voting available for all Americans living abroad. E-voting isn't nearly as radical as it sounds, for two reasons. Oregon, the most aggressive remote-vote state, has abolished polling places entirely and now conducts elections exclusively by mail. Local jurisdictions in 15 other states have conducted all-mail elections too. Second, as Jacob Weisberg pointed out in this space last week, Americans have already been voting by computer for years.
Most experts expect the next generation of voting technology to be Internet-based.
And once voters start using Internet terminals at polling places, it's a short step to using the same technology from home or work. But for this to happen, software makers will have to devise voting systems that are demonstrably secure. Banks and insurance companies already use digital signatures to transfer large sums of money online. The authorities verify that your signature matches the one on your original registration form at the county courthouse and also record the digital identity of the computer from which you've downloaded the form. You're then sent a PIN that will work only from that computer.