Pentagon E-Voting Program Drops out of the Race

By Cynthia L. Webb
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Friday, February 6, 2004; 10:00 AM

The Internet's role in campaigns and elections continues to grow, but security snags continue to mar e-voting efforts. Amid a public outcry over security, the Pentagon said it would pull the plug on its plan to let U.S. citizens living abroad cast their votes online in the upcoming presidential election.

The news is an about-face for the Defense Department, which had virulently defended an expansion of its e-voting program, despite a recent report by computer security experts that called for it to be tanked because of the potential for security problems and hacker attacks that could change votes or taint information.

Seems the Pentagon brass finally listened to the criticism, mostly from four computer scientists who were part of a group that reviewed the merits -- and pitfalls -- of the test system, called the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment.

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