Is Internet voting fair?

Advocates cite greater participation and convenience; opponents say online voting is discriminatory.

By DEBORAH PHILLIPS
Network World, 06/26/00

Internet voting initially presents itself as a benevolent new platform for election administration, with the potential to reach voters not currently engaged in the process. But given the inequities of access to the Internet, "remote" Internet voting - voting via the Internet in a nonpolling-place environment such as a home, office or library - results in discrimination.

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The civil rights movements centered on achieving equity of access to the ballot box. But once the vote was secured for minorities, devices such as literacy tests were often used to prevent minority voting. Given the disparity of Internet access, remote Internet voting represents a new-millennium version of a literacy test.

According to a 1999 Department of Commerce study, "Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide," based on 48,000 in-person interviews - many with individuals who are not connected - whites are more likely to have Internet access from home than most racial and ethnic minorities have from any location. Nationally, only 19% of African-Americans and 16% of Hispanics have Internet access from any location, compared with 38% of whites. Taken together, African-American and Hispanic households are only 40% as likely as white households to have Internet access. And the divide is growing because, although minorities are slowly gaining access, white access is accelerating rapidly. Simple economics are not the engine driving this disparity: Among those with incomes of $20,000 or less, whites are five times more likely to have Internet access than minorities.

Even if special pains were taken to create cybervillages in publicly accessible locations, remote Internet voting would be less likely among minority voters. By making voting more convenient for voters who have ready access - predominantly white - a bias is set up that boosts the potential turnout for connected voters while diluting the power of individual minority voters' ballots.

The implications are profound. Remote Internet voting could be used to manipulate election outcomes by structuring access to favor the most Internet-connected. For example, in a statewide referendum vote on letting a toxic waste dump be located in a predominantly minority area, Internet voting could be used to flood the election with favorable votes while disadvantaging those most likely to be affected.

Equity of access is easily addressed by simply removing remote Internet voting from the election equation. By confining Internet voting to polling places, you immediately bring parity to the process, while gaining time to address the complex issues of how to bridge the digital divide. Otherwise, the premature use of remote Internet voting will result in an America where all voters are created equal, but some are more equal than others.

Phillips is chairman and president of the Voting Integrity Project, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit voter rights organization. She can be reached at votingproj@aol.com.