In fact, it's a wonder any of us ever go online. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Steve Case do not impress this crowd. To the contrary, the possibility of it being corrupted is just incredible. David Jefferson, a scientist at Compaq and also an advisor to California Governor Gray Davis' task force investigating Internet voting, shares the security concerns but seems to take a more practical stance. As one panelist put it, utility always wins out over security.
Public elections are highly complex, requiring multi-lingual and often very long ballots.
Protections must be in place to ensure equal access for the poor. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have decried the so-called Digital Divide, the chasm between those who have access to the Internet and those who do not. Public elections cannot tolerate delays. There simply is not time for re-booting, denial of service attacks, viruses and other problems we encounter daily in computing. And elections must be transparent and highly observable.