Click Here For President: The Future of Voting in America

Innovators have tried since the dawn of American democracy to create a simple, secure and reliable voting system. And today’s technology seems to make that more possible than ever: If "American Idol" can get 97.5 million votes through the Internet, phone and text message, then couldn’t those methods aid elections that really matter?

A recent poll conducted by Zogby International on behalf of MSN found that the majority of Americans are open to electronic voting systems. The online survey of 6,478 likely voters from across the United States discovered that 59 percent of those polled generally support electronic voting. But they still have strong reservations about using the Internet or cell phones to make elections more convenient. Election officials and observers share those concerns.

States opt for optical

Direct-recording electronic voting machines, or DREs, were once hailed as the future. But last August, the state of California decertified all of its DREs, except for use by the disabled, because of security and accuracy concerns. Florida scrapped its $125 million-dollar conversion to touch-screen DREs in 2006 after machines in Sarasota caused an estimated 18,000 votes to vanish in the 13th Congressional District election. The scandal prompted the state to spend $28 million converting to optical scanners, which use paper ballots. New Mexico, California, Ohio and Colorado also have made a similar shift to optical scanners.

___________________________________________________
More from MSN

• 2008 Election Guide on MSN
• Not e-cstatic for e-voting

___________________________________________________

Those states are on the right track, says Rebecca Mercuri, a computer forensic expert with Notable Software, a consulting firm specializing in computer security. "Paper ballots provide a way the electronic totals from a ballot scanner can be independently confirmed," she says. "These can and should be hand counted as a check against the electronic tallying device."

But critics of the return to paper point out that there are good reasons we switched from it in the first place.

“The reality is that, historically, elections have been conducted on paper and throughout the same history we’ve had election fraud,” said Daniel Castro, senior analyst for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in an interview with National Public Radio.

What’s next?

In March, the foundation held an event promoting new voting technology that helps voters determine whether their votes have been counted accurately.

“The single biggest change we will see in future voting systems is that they will have ‘end-to-end’ verifiability,” Castro says. End-to-end verifiability allows voters to independently confirm that their ballot has been included in the final vote tally.

One system with end-to-end verifiability showcased at the event, Scantegrity II, developed by students at George Washington University, does use paper ballots, but with a new twist. “II” stands for invisible ink. Voters make their mark alongside their choice for president with a special pen — and the pen reveals a randomized code. When voters look up the serial number of their ballot online, they can make sure the reported code matches up with the code they uncovered. Only the voter can tell if the ballot was counted accurately.