Online absentee voting eliminates postmarks

The Pentagon is putting the finishing touches on an electronic voting system that will allow about 100,000 military personnel and other Americans living abroad to cast their ballots through the Internet in the 2004 elections.
Military absentee ballots were a hot issue in the most recent presidential election, when Republicans accused Democrats of pushing Florida officials to reject overseas ballots that were improperly postmarked.
The new system, in which each voter is assigned a digital signature for voting through a secure Internet connection, will replace the postal method of absentee ballots, particularly for U.S. troops deployed around the world.
"We have troops on the move," said Polli Brunelli, director of the Pentagon's Federal Voting Assistance Program, which designed the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE).
...
Committing fraud through SERVE would be no less difficult than committing it on election day at a regular polling station, she said, adding that the system's security measures are "more sophisticated" than what a person must go through to partake in banking transactions through the Internet.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030805-100739-9442r.htm

Current US law requires most banks to use 128-bit encryption. However, we know that isn't particularly secure. Good piece here. It's not always just about the number of numbers....

Will all the states change their laws in time?

just like they do with most stuff that Congress wants.

Or will the digital signature allow the administration to trace the votes? First they crack down on troops that speak out against the administration, next they go after anyone who doesn't vote the way they want.

is that the votes should be transmitted instantaneously, preventing the fiasco with counting unpostmarked ballots in Florida.

I know the current battleline is blackbox voting, but it seems to me the repugs are also pushing the next generation, probably after some wised up Dems(if any are left) get disgruntled about glitchy GOP leaning touch screnes. It follows the same pattern. Critics are dismissed. Security is "touted" but secondary to ease and convenience. People fall into line to eliminate all those "other" nasty things of prior election methods.

Everything goes invisible- including the voter. It is worse than voting by telephone which never got anywhere. The lure of the mythical "high tech" age is irrational but it is all about propaganda. I note that though this is an experiment, the votes are spread over key sy=ttates which coincidentally are heavy with military and important to the electoral college.

How on earth this was ever snuck in is a tribute probably to the idea of "supporting our troops" as a political club. Thanks again Lieberman for handing them the ball on this one in Florida 2000. If they need this "showcase" to contribute to a close election expect the results to be suitably fraudulent. SERVE is primarily a Pentagon project but is quickly becoming inclusive of other citizens abroad with an eye to the future.

The issues of access to computers will be swept aside as more and more are allowed "safe" internet voting, increasing the numbers of richer white population vis a vis the growing non-white population- who will be stuck with discouraging (on edit, I almost typed "vetoing") voting machines.

Reach out and touch someone.