But party-run contests are in a gray zone between private and public elections because their outcomes affect candidates and government. Thus, developers of new voting technologies have seen party contests as valuable proving grounds.
That strategy backfired in the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential caucuses in Iowa and Nevada, when new digital apps and counting systems did not perform as pledged, delaying the results followed by questions from some candidates about the reported outcomes' accuracy.
Before emergencies like the pandemic and Puerto Rico hurricanes, online voting opponents had kept the option out of most government elections. A few exceptions involved trials where a few hundred people mostly overseas troops and civilians voted. As a result, Puerto Rico's legislation has alarmed critics.
Among the signatories to the letter lobbying Gov. Va'zquez Garced to veto Senate Bill 1314 were some of the experts who advised the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee in 2019 before the RBC reversed course on requiring its 2020 caucus states to offer a remote participation option (which meant voting online or by cell phone). While virtual voting via phones did not happen, Iowa and Nevada had other problems.
Thus, it is somewhat ironic that a number of state Democratic parties are looking to online voting to continue their 2020 contests, even if these exercises do not involve voting by the general public. However, given the pandemic's challenges, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee would not be scrutinizing the shift to online voting options as it might otherwise do, said James Roosevelt Jr., RBC co-chair.
"As long as it deals with how they will conduct their state convention, it is unlikely that we will look at it," he said. "To the extent that it deals with the selection of national convention delegates, we might well look at it. Frankly, I think there is likely to be less scrutiny on our part under this state of national emergency than there would have been in normal times."
The shift to online voting in the nominating process's next stages county or state conventions raises the prospect that some of the voting systems deployed could also be used as a partial replacement for the Democratic National Convention, which is slated for July 13-16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Roosevelt also said that the DNC was still planning to hold its national convention in July. (The convention was timed to not conflict with the 2020 Olympics, which have not yet been postponed, but countries are saying they won't send any athletes.)
As some states have moved their presidential primaries to June, Roosevelt said the RBC would review potential delegate allocation changes that possibly could affect the total number needed to nominate a presidential candidate. But the big picture, he said, was that state parties were not "postponing or canceling conventions."
The RBC co-chair said that he favored any solution that increased access and participation in 2020's party-run contests and primaries.
Primaries also changing
In response to the pandemic, state officials and election policy experts have been pushing a shift to voting by mail for 2020's remaining elections. While executing that shift on a national level is a formidable task, Frank Leone said that some blue states were acting quickly to try to increase access in upcoming spring primaries.
In Virginia and New York, where an "excuse" is now needed to get an absentee ballot, state election boards have decided that voters could check a box on an application citing "an illness" the coronavirus to get a ballot, he said.
But in purple and red-run states, there are brewing fights over near-term voting options and rules. The Wisconsin Democratic Party and DNC filed an emergency suit on March 18 and won a court order to lift barriers to online voter registration before its April 7 primary. But the Texas Democratic Party has not convinced statewide officials to expand early voting for its May 26 primary runoffs.
The pandemic is changing the way that America votes. But whether online voting will be expanded beyond party contests is an open question. Computer scientists who oppose online voting, including those who signed the letter urging a Puerto Rico veto, said that they expected it to arise in discussions about the pandemic.
"I would suspect the situation is this: Governors and their staff have N+1 things that are critical right now. Someone says, 'Well, we could just take the election online, and that would solve one of the critical issues,'" Duncan Buell, University of South Carolina Computer Science and Engineering Department chair, said via email. "Thus, a decision would be made to do what seems easy at the time."
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