3 million overseas and military voters will be able to cast ballots on Internet this fall
Ian Urbina New York Times May 9 2010Nearly 3 million overseas and military voters from at least 33 states will be permitted to cast ballots over the Internet in November using e-mail or fax, in part because of new regulations proposed last month by the federal agency that oversees voting.
The move comes as state and federal election officials are trying to find faster ways to handle the ballots of these voters, which often go uncounted in elections because of distance and unreliable mail service.
About 22 percent of military and overseas voters surveyed were unable to return their ballots in the 2008 election because of such problems, according to the Overseas Vote Foundation, a nonpartisan advocacy group.
Cybersecurity experts, election officials and voting-integrity advocates, however, have raised concerns about the plan. They point out that e-mail messages can be intercepted, that voting websites can be hacked or taken down by malicious attacks, and that the secrecy of ballots is hard to ensure once they are sent over the Web.
