TO: CVF-NEWS
FROM: Kim Alexander
DATE: March 18, 1999
RE: Net Voting; Live Webbies Webcast

Hi Folks,

Yesterday I attended the first meeting of California Secretary of State Bill Jones' Internet Voting Task Force. Task force members include people from the fields of elections, technology and politics. The 20 of us spent about three hours discussing the various issues that must be addressed in considering voting over the Internet. Important topics included security, privacy, authentication, public trust in the system, and other processes impacted by the prospects of Internet voting, including voter registration and initiative petition signatures.

The group split into two subgroups: one is focusing on the technological, security, cost and authentication issues; the other on public trust, access, demographics and legal issues. Discussions will be pursued via email, and the whole task force should hopefully convene again within one or two months (a date for the next meeting has not yet been set).

Below is Rebecca Fairley Raney's story from today's New York Times Cybertimes, which gives a great account of yesterday's discussion. Below that is a list of task force members.

In Other News......

Tonight's Webby Awards will be webcast live and can be viewed over the Internet with RealPlayer. The awards ceremony is being held at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco and begins at 8 p.m. P.S.T. To watch the awards over the Net, visit

http://www.webbyawards.com

And should anyone fear that there's too much pomp and circumstance surrounding the 1999 Webby Awards, I'm sure the post-party, being held in San Francisco's newly-renovated yet still mouse-infested City Hall will keep all of us on our toes :)


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Thursday, March 18, 1999 -- New York Times' Cybertimes

California Takes Up Issue of Online Voting

By REBECCA FAIRLEY RANEY

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- In the first state-level effort to study the feasibility of an Internet voting system, California's Secretary of State convened a task force on Wednesday to examine the issues involved with casting ballots online.

Secretary Bill Jones opened the group's first meeting by telling the panel of two dozen technologists, political scientists and election officials: "Technology and people's expectations are going to force us to deal with these issues. The rest of the country expects California to lead on this."

(Continued at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/03/cyber/articles/18vote.html)


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California Secretary of State's Internet Voting Task Force Members:

* Secretary of State Staff

Alfie Charles
John Mott-Smith
Pam Giarrizzo
Brian Gangler
Tom Hill

* Legislature

Senator Kevin Murray (staff: Larry Sokol)
Assemblyman Jim Cunneen

* County Clerks/Election Officials

Dwight Beattie, Assistant Registrar of Voters, County of Sacramento

Warren Slocum, San Mateo County Clerk
Mikel Haas, San Diego County Registrar of Voters
Roger Dao, Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters' Office

* Internet Security & Technology

Tim Draper, localchoice2000.com
Mark Reynolds, iLumin Corp.
James L. Wayman, Ph.D., National Biometric Test Center
Kaye Caldwell, Silicon Valley Software Industry Coalition
Peter Adlerberg & Jim Adler, Soundcode Data Security
Cameron O'Rourke, Oracle Corporation
Sylvia Ahern, Ph.D., Sterling Software
Robert Yudkin, IBM Segment Manager, Election Systems, Global Government Industry
David Jefferson, Network Systems Lab, Compaq Computer Corporation
Joe Rodota, KPMG

* Voting Groups/Academia

Kim Alexander, California Voter Foundation
R. Michael Alvarez, California Institute of Technology
Jonathan Nagler, UC Riverside
Linda Valenty, San Jose State