Tuesday, December 26, 2000

U.S. Voters Unsure About Online Voting

Americans are generally willing to try new technologies for voting, and the type they're most comfortable trying is as familiar as their neighborhood automatic teller machine (ATM), according to a new survey by Gartner Group, Inc.. The indecision following the November 2000 presidential election prompted calls for electoral reform, including more modern voting technology. While there has been much attention on Internet voting, Gartner's nationwide survey of registered voters showed voters are willing to try voting using a more familiar electronic technology.

Fifty percent of those surveyed said they would be very willing to go to a polling place and cast their vote using a touch screen, similar to a bank ATM. Twelve percent of the respondents said they were not at all willing to use such technology (called direct registered electronic voting).

"This finding speaks to familiarity," said Laura Behrens, industry analyst for Gartner's e-Business Services group. "ATMs and similar touch screens are everywhere, and there is little or no price barrier to using them - I don't have to install an ATM in my home to gain access to my bank. When access to the Internet becomes as widespread and inexpensive as ATMs are, we should expect to see greater confidence in using the Internet for voting and related activities."

About one-third of those surveyed said they would be very willing to use e-mail or the Internet to register to vote (34 percent), to request an absentee ballot (32 percent), or to cast their vote on election day (33 percent). Slightly fewer (28 percent) said they would be willing to return an absentee ballot via e-mail or the Internet. But proportions ranging from 27 percent to 32 percent said they would not be at all willing to use e-mail or the Internet for these election-related activities.

" The major difference between these groups is their experience with the Internet," Ms. Behrens said. "Heavy Web users are much more willing to engage in e-voting. In fact, people who report being on the Internet at least five days a week are three times as willing to try e-voting as are people who are on only one or two days a week."

No more than 2 percent of respondents had used e-mail or the Internet for any voting-related activity detailed in the study, but that proportion is likely to grow in future elections. Elections-related Web sites report more than a million persons registered to vote or requested absentee ballots before the November 2000 election.

The sentiment for e-voting is not unanimous, however. Even among heavy Internet users, 18 percent are not willing to use the Internet to register or to vote. That proportion rises to more than half (52 percent) among people who don't use the Internet at all, who still constitute one-third of respondents in this study.

The findings come from a Gartner nationwide telephone survey of 1,005 registered voters, conducted between November 30 and December 5, 2000.

Hundreds of county election offices will be forced to adopt new voting technologies in the next decade. Many now use aged mechanical lever systems than can no longer be maintained or repaired. Similar numbers of election offices can be expected to respond to the specter of hanging chads and move to replace their existing punch card systems. Of Gartner survey respondents who voted in November 2000, more than half (57 percent) reported using one of these two systems to cast their ballot.

"These findings should alert governments to the need for significant voter education as they adopt new voting technologies," said Ms. Behrens. "Even if state and county governments find the money and technical wherewithal to modernize voting systems, the effort will be squandered if voters don't trust the systems enough to use them. The implications for voter turnout and public policy demand a well-planned and well-executed strategy for rollout of new systems."

Most Internet Crimes Go Unpunished
According to Gartner Group, Inc., governments at all levels have failed to fund resources adequately to address cybercrime, so criminals exploiting the Internet have little fear of law enforcement. Law enforcement and cybercrime experts recently gathered at Gartner to examine criminal business models, federal law enforcement budgets and cybercrime law enforcement efforts.

The findings of Gartner’s Crime on the Internet Workshop indicate that little law enforcement is applied to the Internet, a situation known by criminals at all levels. According to Gartner vice president Richard Hunter, “Willie Sutton said that he robbed banks ‘because that’s where the money is.’ Today’s Internet criminals don’t have to rob banks -- with currently available technology, they can just as easily rob tens of thousands of individuals, with less chance of being caught.”

According to Gartner, approximately 97 percent of all law enforcement funding for cybercrime investigation in the United States is spent on about 300 federal agents -- less than 0.1 percent of the 600,000 law enforcement agents serving the United States. In 2000, federal discretionary spending on law enforcement is estimated to be $17 billion. Of that, only $10 million is allocated for computer crime-related training, staffing and support -- less than 0.1 percent of all law enforcement-related spending.

Congress has not approved a proposed appropriation for $138.4 million to be spent on law enforcement research training, and staffing on the Internet. Therefore, according to Gartner, annual federal funding for cybercrime training investigation and enforcement will not exceed 1 percent of the overall federal law enforcement budget through 2004. Furthermore, during the same time period, the economic value represented by Internet crimes is projected by Gartner to grow by as much as 1,000 percent.

The Gartner workshop participants discussed specific criminal business models likely to thrive on the Internet -- ranging from corporate espionage to insurance fraud. A recent case in California involved a team of criminals that fraudulently billed more than three million legitimate credit card holders for supposedly purchasing pornography from a Web site owned by the criminals. That criminal team collected more than $30 million in the mass-skimming effort.

“Criminals generally don’t think strategically,” said Hunter. “They often don’t even define an exit strategy, and that may help limit the damage. In the meantime, people and businesses on the Internet must be responsible for their own electronic security, just as they are now largely responsible for the security of their homes. They must watch their transaction records with hawk-like vision. The safeguards are few at this early stage of trying to track crime on the Internet, and many crimes will go unpunished during the next three years.”

News Tidbits (appears every day on front page)
- PayPal, known for its easy ability to allow users to transfer money online, has found a new way to make money. Breaking from the all-Web formula, the company will soon begin offering MasterCard debit cards to its members.