Reform Voting Evokes E-Votes

Notwithstanding the apparent failure of its attempts to improve the tenor of American democracy, the Reform Party is still trying to change American politics. Its next purported advance: electronic voting to determine a presidential candidate.

Party officials say that the contest between Patrick Buchanan and John Hagelin for the Reform Party presidential nomination will be settled through a unique "mixed-media" election, giving voters the option of voting either through a mail-in paper ballot or on the Web over a three-day period prior to the party's Aug. 10-13 national convention.

"We've always been a party that has dealt more with electronic communication than postal mail and telephones," said Reform Party Acting Chairman Gerry Moan. Allowing voters to cast their votes electronically makes the party more accessible to all Americans, and consequently, more accountable to its constituents, he said.

The entire voting process -- electronic and postal -- is being handled by eBallot, a relatively new entrant into the raucous electronic voting industry, in which upstart companies are tripping over each other to get valuable commissions from national organizations.

Moan said that eBallot was chosen because it's based in Seattle, which is close to the party's convention in Long Beach, California, and because the company kept its price low -- around $1 million, Moan said.

The Reform Party nominating process is eBallot's first major commission. Most of its experience so far has been on a smaller scale, such as elections for corporate boards. Tim Robertson, the vice president of business development for the company, said that in preparing for the Reform vote, the company incurred infrastructure costs that exceeded $1 million it's taking in on the project.

More than 800,000 ballots have already been sent to prospective Reform voters. Each ballot has a unique PIN number associated with it. A voter can fill out the ballot and mail it in, or log on to the website and choose a candidate.

Now that the company has developed this "engine," Robertson said that eBallot can handle large commissions. Since landing the Reform nomination, eBallot has been approached by a number of "private and governmental" organizations interested in Internet elections, he said.

The Reform Party's nominating process promises to be semi-historic, as it will be the first national binding election determined (at least partly) electronically. In January, VoteHere.net held the first binding Internet election, but there were only 35 voters in that contest -- the Alaskan Republican straw poll.