E-voting advocates hold out hope

The Pentagon's recent decision not to allow online voting in the upcoming US presidential election came as a blow to many e-voting proponents. Pentagon officials halted plans to roll out the Defense Department's Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment during the upcoming general election after four prominent security researchers issued a report detailing the system's security vulnerabilities. Mock pilot elections can establish the efficacy, not to mention security, of online ballot casting. Sample votes can be garnered from online voters from one or two test states, several states, or abroad. And, as with most other Internet applications with optimum security concerns, further trials might also incorporate "white hat" hacker tests, in which "friendly" hackers attack the system and provide feedback to its developers. Pilot tests can also include using secure-access kiosks