I worked on election integrity issues for a decade. Verify the machines work correctly, protect the secret ballot, keep admins from purging the voter rolls illegally, etc.

My opponents had (effectively) infinite time and resources. They will forward their agenda relentlessly. Year after year. Non stop.

To "win", I had to show up EVERY SINGLE DAY for EVERY SINGLE BATTLE FRONT.

Well. One day I stayed home. After ten years of preventing internet voting (in my state), the legislature suspended the rules, fast-tracked the internet voting bill (no public hearings), and it passed unanimously.

I asked my representatives, who had previously committed to never passing such a bill, "WTF?"

"Well, we didn't hear any opposition."

(Fruit flies have longer attention spans.)

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What I'm trying to say is that people do care. I traveled my entire state and had broad public support for my platform (use "citizen owned" open source software, protect voter privacy, universal voter registration). But we're outclassed, outgunned, and outmaneuvered.

You cannot expect anyone anywhere do The Right Thing.

But if you bring the heat, the powerful will see the light.

The only times I got my way is when I brought pressure. Build coaltions, fill public hearings, letters to the editors, endorsements, resolutions, orchestrate protests, etc.

This book is a very good primer.

  http://www.becomingacitizenactivist.org

I also strongly recommend the Camp Wellstone training for organisers.

  http://wellstone.org

This is my biggest concern about various "moneyed people/orgs with agendas." If their sole job is to push their agenda, it is incredibly asymmetric. How do you win against something like that if all it takes is slipping just once when they are waiting to pounce?

Offense beats defense.

The counter (rock, paper, scissors) is to have an affirmative agenda.

If I had to do it all over, I would have pushed for comprehensive reform and an OSS stack. But young me wasn't very teachable.

The Election Verification Network is making all the right moves, in this regard. Strategy vs tactics, marathon vs sprint, coalition building, etc.

Is this new? or Alaska?

It looks that only Alaska has internet voting beyond corner cases (military and citizens abroad) whose votes don't get counted anyway except in statistically tied races.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/interne...

Washington State. Overseas voters can now cast ballots electronically, eg fax and email.

http://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5171&Year=2011

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Aside: Our conservation district elections, which are self-administered (what could go wrong?), permit casting ballots online.

They know Americans don't care. What percentage of people use services that are roughly this invasive? Google/Bing/Yahoo search, Gmail/hotmail, android, grocery discount cards, any social network, amazon, etc. etc. Probably nearly 95% of the country.

Might as well let AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time-Warner get in on the google and facebook anti-privacy smorgasbord.