Mich. Internet Voting Moves Step Closer

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Mich. Internet Voting Moves Step Closer



By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
Associated Press Writer

October 31, 2003, 6:03 PM EST


LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan Democrats are a step closer to having the option of voting for their presidential favorite over the Internet next Feb. 7 despite a challenge from opponents who say Internet voting would deny equal access to minority and low-income voters in the state.

Hearing officer Helen McFadden heard the challenge to the Internet voting plan on behalf of the Democratic National Committee's rules panel and recommended Internet voting should remain available.

The co-chairs of the DNC's rules panel were inclined to accept the hearing officer's recommendation, said co-chair Carol F. Khare, but she said the full rules panel would be consulted in the case of an appeal.

Joel Ferguson, a black DNC member from Lansing who was among those filing the challenge, said he plans to appeal the recommendation. He said Internet voting might be a good idea in 2008, but would leave many voters who don't have access to computers at a disadvantage in 2004.

The initial challenge to Internet voting in October was backed by all the Democratic presidential candidates except former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark of Arkansas. Both Dean and Clark have used the Internet extensively in their campaigns.

McFadden said in her report that "the lack of home access by any voter to the Internet will not deprive that voter of the opportunity to participate ... because the voter can cast his or her ballot by mail or in person at one of the caucus sites."

She said state Democrats should take additional steps to make voting easier for those who want to participate in the caucuses. Those steps include increasing the number of caucus sites from 429 to 576, the same number available in 1988, setting up a toll-free hot line to help Internet voters, and identifying the location of all publicly available computers with Internet access in minority and low-income areas. Those steps are intended to help other candidates get their voters to the polls.

Mark Brewer, state Democratic Party chairman, said the party is willing to fulfill those requirements.

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Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., endorsed Howard Dean on Friday for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying the former Vermont governor "has a toughness" that can beat President Bush in the 2004 election.

Hinchey, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's justifications for going to war in Iraq, said Dean "was one of the first people in or out of Washington to see through the mischaracterizations and misleading statements by the administration." Dean has gotten the endorsement of 10 members of the House of Representatives, and is expecting to get another one soon from Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois.

Dean said Friday he thinks Bush will be vulnerable on national security because he is spending money on Iraq and tax cuts instead of strengthening homeland security.

"I think national security will be a a big winning issue nationally," Dean said. "Are we safer today than the day he took office? We're not safer."

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Retired Gen. Wesley Clark visited South Carolina as the leading Democratic candidate in the state Friday. He talked about the universal health care plan he unveiled earlier in the week and about how President Bush erred by going to war in Iraq.

Clark stopped at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, his second visit to the state since he declared his candidacy in September. His other visit was to The Citadel military college in Charleston.

The former NATO commander said little about his campaign's big news of the day: a poll that shows him leading the Democratic pack in South Carolina, which holds its primary Feb. 3, and moving past Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, a Seneca native.

When asked about the poll, Clark said, "I feel good about the reception I'm getting in South Carolina, that's what I feel good about."

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Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Will Lester in Washington and Jim Davenport in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this story.