Kansas State trying Internet election

More than 19,000 students at Kansas State University today began casting

online ballots to elect their student body government.

Over the next three days, students from the main campus and the Salina, Kan.,

campus will vote remotely from any computer with Internet access. The Internet

voting technology is being provided by Bellevue, Wash.-based Internet voting

company VoteHere.net.

"University students use computers on a daily basis and will find voting

over the Internet easier to fit into their hectic schedules," Travis Morgan,

KSU's elections chairman, said in a release.

The company's technology will interface with the school's Access Technology

System, which will be used to authenticate students. Authenticated voters

then will be routed to the ballot page at VoteHere.net. The custom ballot

page includes candidates from all the student body offices, senate and council

seats.

After students vote, their ballots will be encrypted and transmitted via

the Internet to VoteHere.net's secure election center where they will be

decrypted and tallied.