tech TALK

Popular elections in the late 19th century--a period well known for its political machines and corruption--faced an unusual problem. A large number of eligible voters were illiterate; they simply could not read the ballots. Corrupt party members often attempted to exploit this illiteracy by disguising their ballot to look like the other party's ballot. For example, Democrats would print ballots with pictures of Abraham Lincoln, so those unsuspecting and illiterate might suppose that they were voting Republican.

When Eric Silberstein--the member of the Undergraduate Council Election Commission who this year is responsible for electronic voting for first-years--approached me last year about on-line voting, he raised a similar problem. Was the campus literate enough for on-line voting? How could we persuade the students, and especially the administration, that this was not only an interesting and innovative project, but that it was actually a significant improvement over the old system of dependable pencil and paper?

The answer wasn't obvious. People often make the mistake of assuming that computers always maximize efficiency and utility. Those of us who use computers periodically (i.e. 99 percent of us here at Harvard) know that this is not the case. Computers will break, entice you into wasting time exploring the Internet or playing solitaire, and will sometimes be just plain slower than doing things by hand.

Moreover, the most common complaint against on-line voting was that we would be discriminating against a large number of students who were either uncomfortable or felt they were incompetent around computers. Clearly, if an on-line voting booth was going to intimidate students into participating in a historically low-participation event, then it was not worth doing no matter what the benefits. This--not security or potential voter fraud, both of which can easily happen under a paper election--was our largest obstacle.

Three factors seem to play in favor of online voting. First, historically, lack of literacy has not been a major factor in the success of an election. Even considering the daunting task many faced of voting for someone whose name they could not read, voter participation in the late 19th century set records in this country, averaging over 70 percent. If true illiteracy did not prevent citizens from voting in the 1880's, then there is not much reason to believe that technical illiteracy would prevent the modern citizen (or Harvard student) from voting now.

Second, most Harvard students are remarkably technically literate. As of press time, there are only about 25 first-years who have not yet activated their accounts; that means over 98 percent of the class of '99 is using e-mail. Many of these students are not just aware, they are savvy. At last year's prefrosh weekend, the Harvard Computer Society thought it would try to dazzle these incoming first-years with the World Wide Web, a stunt which always seemed to impress parents. But the pre-frosh turned the tables; almost all who attended the demonstration had not only seen the web, but already had a web page somewhere else.

Finally, the benefits of such a system are too vast to ignore. Traditionally, simply counting ballots for council elections meant an entire weekend of work for several people. Not only were members of the election commission required to spend hours simply tabulating ballots, they had to do so using a constitutionally required complex system called the "Hare proportional system." In an electronic system, ballot collection and tabulating is simple; it's what computers do best. Additionally, one may easily produce audits of computer-tabulated votes to appease disgruntled losing candidates.

Considering these factors, Silberstein and others managed to persuade the appropriate people to implement this system for first years this fall. The results of this election will indicate whether we as a community are finally surpassing our fears of technology and can now start putting it to good use. If nothing else, the new system will persuade normally apathetic technology advocates to vote, if only to prove the benefits of the technology. Don't forget to vote!

Eugene E. Kim '96 is the former president of the Harvard Computer Society. His column appears every Wednesday. He may be reached on-line at "eekim@fas.harvard.edu."